Why stoop so low?
decision-making process rather than
scrapping the right to appeal.
Keith Vaz MP has called on the
Government to recognise the impact
this highly risky policy will have on
the significant South Asian population in Britain and reconsider their
plans. He states in his letter to
Minister for Immigration, Damien
Green MP,
“The fact that 36% of the decisions are reversed on appeal, it indicates that decision making needs to
be improved rather than the right of
appeal removed. This decision is
especially worrying in light of the
report on the Pakistan visa section
published by the Independent Chief
Inspector of the UK Border Agency
last year which heavily criticised
decision making and highlighted
that in the third quarter of 2009–10,
only 25% of appeals were dismissed.
With the majority of family visitor visas issued to relatives of the
UK’s large South Asian community,
this decision would effect every
Asian family in the UK. The family
visit visa is also generally only valid
for 6 months and therefore does not
impact on net migration figures.”
Habib Rahman, Chief Executive
of the Joint Council for the Welfare
of Immigrants has also shared simi-

lar views and said, " an application
for someone to attend a wedding, a
funeral, to visit a dying relative or to
be with their loved ones for short
periods is , the right to an appeal is
the only fair way to settle such a
matter. Thus the idea is discriminatory and mean and should be abandoned before it gets any further."
Abolishing rights to appeal for
family visit visas have a history in
the UK's politics as the rights were
scrapped by former Home Secretary,
Ken Clarke in 1992. He told MPs
that while he recognised that those
who were refused were greatly disappointed that they could not come to
Britain, it was still "not a matter of
life or death".
The decision lead to many problems and tensions in the British
Asian community causing a drift in
the larger society. After evaluating
the outcomes, the right was reintroduced by the Labour party in 2000
under Jack Straw. However, with yet
another similar proposal, that too in
the times of heightened controversies over immigration issues, it is
reflected that the government is
unable to learn from its own past
and is unnecessarily looking to
cause discomfort in the society.
Continued on page 5

- %#!, ,) . $'

$'$,0

Government's new plans of scrapping the 'Right to Appeal' for family
visit visa has reignited controversy
that has surrounded the Coalition's
immigration policies aimed to cap
the in-flow of migrants into the UK.
According to the proposal that
was leaked into the national press,
more than 80,000 overseas relatives
of British families who are refused
visas will lose the right to appeal to
attend family events like weddings,
funerals and alike.
However, senior Whitehall officials have warned the Home Office
that the plan is 'Highly controversial
and legally risky', especially within
the UK's British Asian community.
The Immigration Minister, Damian
Green has also been told to expect
protests from “some Commonwealth
countries”.
In 2010, more than 420,000 visa
applications were made by relatives
of British families abroad, with
350,000 visas granted at the first
instance. From the one's rejected,
63,000 were applied again with the
'Right to Appeal', out of which
another 36 percent were then granted the visa. Granting the visa to
these 36 percent while rejecting
them on the first place has raised a
need of looking into Home Office's

1
*#( " 0+ /##&

21st May to 27th May 2011

Manubhai is no more
Manubhai M Madhvani,
well-known for his outstanding
contribution towards all walks of life
across the globe, passed away on
17th May at 00:20. The sad demise
has left his entire family disheartened,
but they are optimistic that his
presence will still be felt as our society
go on to witness the sweet fruits of his
extensive welfare work.
Leaders of the society has offered
condolences. See pg.13
Read more about his life on pg.26

With Aunty in Capital,
Madam in Centre, Amma
in South, Didi in East,
Bhenji in North, it looks
India is now living on
woman power. India for the
first time can boast of four
women chief ministers.
With the capture of
power
by
Mamata
Banerjee (Didi) in West

Bengal and J Jayalalithaa
(Amma) in Tamil Nadu,
the list of women chief
ministers has risen to
four. The others in the
list are Shiela Dikshit
(Madam) of Delhi, and
BSP supremo Mayawati
(Bhenji)
in
Uttar
Pradesh.
Continued on page 26

2

UK

Asian Voice - Saturday 21st May 2011

one to one
Keith Vaz MP with

Asad Shan, Managing Director, Iconic Productions UK
Asad Shan is a British model-turned actor. In
2004 he was crowned Mr. Asia UK. Recently Asad
has finished directing and starring in his first feature film, 7 Welcome To London. His most
notable experience was as a veejay for B4U
Music in India. After graduating from university
with a degree in Law, Asad went to New York to
train in Method Acting at the Lee Strasberg
Theatre Institute and in Film Performance at the
New York Film Academy. Soon, Bollywood beckoned and he moved from the Big Apple to the
bright lights and glamour of Mumbai. Now back
in the UK Asad concentrates most of his time on
Iconic Productions UK, a production company
nurturing new and emerging talent.
What inspired you to
begin your career in
film?
I always enjoyed watching films, my dad used to
bring good old VHS of
Bollywood films and I
used to watch the old
Hollywood films growing
up, so once I had finished my studies and
worked for a couple of
years in the big corporate world, I decided to
follow my passion and
thereafter it all began.

Who has been the
biggest influence on
your career to date?
My parents have been a
great influence. For me,
my father is the hardest
working individual I
know, hence he was a
superb role model to follow and my mother’s
recovery from a brain
tumour gave me the perfect hope and opportunity to achieve my goals
and fulfil my dreams.
What is the best thing
about your current role?
I love Acting and
Presenting but the best
thing about being a filmmaker is to conceive,
give birth and then share
your baby with the
world when it hits the
big screen. I am super
proud of every work I
have done and it helps
me connect with my
audience whom I love
dearly.

What are your proudest
achievements?

People
■ London's Club Asia
have just returned from
a visit to Istanbul for
the wedding of Pramod
Mittal's
daughter.
Those who replied to
the invitation on time
got to stay at an outstanding hotel the others had to make do
with just stunning. Off
they all went to the
next venue, Venice, for
the marriage of Pramod
Agarwal's daughter.
■ Lord Gulam Noon
made
his
maiden
speech in the House of
Lords; all those present
were very impressed.

And the worst?
Proudest achievement is
completing my directional film 7- welcome to
London, which is my
dream project. I have
placed all my learning’s
and skills in this film.
Hence I am really looking forward to sharing
this with the world, coming soon in 2011.
Another proud moment
is every weekend when
my parents watch my

show on Zing where I do
a show called Brits
Bollywood, which has
transmission to all the
continents. Ps. I was the
winner of a pageant, Mr.
Asia UK 2004.
Please tell us about your
current position?

The magic of Bollywood returns
to the West End!

Currently I am the director of Iconic Productions
UK LTD, Iconic has completed its first feature film
and is planning to make
more films in UK, utilising the talent we have
here. We also run a
Bollywood
Acting
Academy where we teach
students and professionals the art of acting and
presenting in evening
courses.
I am also an actor and
have two feature films
coming out this year, 7
welcome to London and
London Life,
I am also a VJ and
Presenter on SKY789 for
Zee Networks musical
channel called Zing. I am
also the secretary for my
local ward for the Labour
party.
What has been the
biggest obstacle in your
career?
My biggest obstacle came
from within to decide on
this career and giving up
Investment Banking. My
parents have been amazing and very supportive. I
suppose I have been so
busy for the last few years
that I have not had time
to visit places like LA. I
would like to give LA a
shot once my two features
have been released.

####

“A huge blast

of fun”
“Bouncing with bling and
energy to burn”

THE TIMES

METRO

31 MAY - 3 JULY
With shows on
Sunday evenings

Erratic hours, never ending work, believing in
perfection, lack of sleep
and most importantly
having no normality in
life.
What are your long term
goals
with
Iconic
Productions UK?
Iconic productions UK
Ltd is an institution and
is ready to venture into
more productions and
make films. With our
academy we will create
new talent and build a
platform for anyone
interested in Acting or
Presenting.
If you were Prime
Minister, what one thing
would you change?
I will make sure every
single person in this
country VOTES during
the elections. It will be
compulsory.
If you were marooned
on a desert island,
which historical figures
would you like to spend
your time with and
why?
Winston Churchill for
his humour, Mahatma
Ghandi for his calmness
Eva Mendes for reasons
I can’t reveal Massimo
Bottura, the best chef in
the world to toss us
some amazing food.

UK is still a home to 181,000 illegal migrants
According to a government report, around 181,000
migrants are living in Britain unlawfully after their visas
have expired. The total includes students and workers
from outside the EU who should have left the country in
the last two-and-a-half years.
UK Border Agency bosses came under fire from MPs
after admitting they have no idea how many have
returned home because they do not count people out of
the country while a new system to monitor electronically everyone who departs will not be fully in place for at
least another two years.The report, by the Commons
Public Accounts Committee, warned the agency not to
use the lack of exit controls as an ‘excuse’ to ignore
thousands who are overstaying illegally.

Lord Gulam Noon

The troika of new ethnic minority peers:
Noon, Lord Dolar
Popat and Baroness
Oona King are a great
credit to the community.

■ The PM is to appear
before the Commons
Liaison Committee this
week. This is the body
that
contains
the
Chairpersons of all the
Commons Committee.
Expect him to be asked
about how he celebrated his first anniversary
with the Deputy to
Prime Minister Nick
Clegg!

300
immigration
abuses
reported
every day
It was revealed that immigration officials receive
about 300 complaints a
day of suspected illegal
migrants and other related
abuses. However UK
Border Agency (UKBA)
has received immense
criticism over the handling of these reported
complaints as most of the
times the officials are not
even able to tell the status
of a complaint, let alone
whether it was concluded.
John Vine, the chief
inspector of UKBA, said
the picture was “unacceptable” and that intelligence is often focused on
hitting targets rather than
targeting those organising
illegal immigration.
A separate report also
revealed that plans to
arrest suspected illegal
immigrants had to be
delayed because of a lack
of detention space.

Asian Voice - Saturday 21st May 2011

COMMENT

Rethink immigration policy
The Coalition Government's plan to scrap the 'Right
to Appeal' on family visit visas has reignited the spotlight on immigration and the Tory election pledge to
cap the flow of immigrants into the UK. According to
leaked media reports, more than 80,000 overseas relatives of British citizens who are refused visas will
lose their right of appeal. Such visits usually entail
family weddings, funerals and the like. Senior
Whitehall officials have warned the Home Office that
the plan was “highly controversial and legally risky”.
It could be referred to the European Court found
wanting as a violation of human rights. The proposed
measure is not fit for purpose.
Immigration control is a fact of life in today's
world and nobody in his/her right senses would
argue otherwise. That said, it would be equally
untenable to cap the legitimate flow of people across
national borders. People travel for a variety of reasons, some for pleasure, others for business, education, science, culture and plain tourism. For the most
part they have the required documentation, which

experienced staff at British embassies and consulates
subject to close scrutiny. They are well able to weed
out deficient applications from those that are genuine. Must we add to the weight of the bureaucracy
by adding to its labours at no great financial or social
benefit to the country? And we are enjoined in our
waking and sleeping hours to accept spending cuts
as a prime national interest.
Earlier, the Coalition dispensed much time and
labour over the right of foreign companies in the UK
to bring non-British staff into the country for their
specialist skills. The City and British firms expressed
their concerns at the Government's initial obduracy,
which was linked to the Tory party's election promises at the hustings. Eventually reason and common
sense prevailed and a way forward was found.
Good sense should prevail over the projected
abolition of the 'Right to Appeal' on visa rejections.
It is possible to have immigration concerns without
surrendering to xenophobia or plain paranoia.

Communists routed in West Bengal;
DMK crushed in Tamil Nadu
The Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPM,
which has ruled West Bengal for the past 34 years has
been decimated in the state elections. The party has
also been dislodged from power in Kerala, hence faces
possible extinction as a political force in India. In
Tamil Nadu, the ruling DMK has been wiped out,
while in Assam, the ruling Congress party has been
returned to office. Free and honest elections in India
are the pride of its citizens, and rightly so. It is one
of India's many achievements since independence
from British colonial rule in August 1947.
In West Bengal the CPM and its allies have suffered a defeat from which Indian communism may
never recover. But first things first. In (Ms) Mamata
Banerjee, the Communist party as immovable object
met the irresistible force. Ms Banerjee had left the
Congress party and formed her Trinamool Congress
as a regional grouping so that she and her colleagues
could concentrate on ridding West Bengal of a
scourge instead of politicking with them in Delhi and
indulging their ambitions in Bengal. It was a long
haul and the obstacles were formidable. But Ms
Banerjee, a woman of enormous courage and
indomitable will, pressed on regardless. Faint hearts
in the state had long given up in resignation. She kept
on fighting until the tide turned and her efforts bore
fruit.
Communist rule ended amidst sleaze and intimidation. Bengalis saw the lack of progress in their state
compared with progress elsewhere in India. In 1960,
West Bengal was the second industrial state in the
country. Its slow declines accelerated under
Communist rule and ended in prolonged stagnation
from which, apparently, there was no escape.
Ideological pieties and slogans buttered no
parsnips.There was a flight of capital and skills from
the state. No reform was possible because of the lack
of political space. The people finally understood that
their Communist rulers had to be eliminated root and
branch if West Bengal was to claim any sort of future.
The victory of Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool
Congress was akin to a tsunami. Fourteen ministers
in the state government, including Chief Minister
Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, lost their seats. The new
dispensation has started at the bottom of the proverbial mountain but there is a fierce determination to
climb the heights. Ms Banerjee has capable and honest advisers around her; she will benefit from their

counsel and from the help and encouragement of
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's central government in Delhi.
So where did the CPM and its Left Front allies go
wrong? Their initial success in initiating land reforms
did much to reduce rural poverty. Urban and rural
destitution has become a thing of the past. Having
completed the first rung of progress, the way was
open to further ascent, but this did not happen as
Communist control freaks feared the party would lose
its levers on power into the future. Thereafter the promotion of a self-perpetuating party bureaucracy based
on perks and perquisites became an obstacle to aspiration. Education and entrepreneurial endeavour
aroused the suspicion of Communist leaders and
hacks. Incessant trade union agitation resulted in
industrial stagnation and decline and the flight of
capital from the state. A parasitic class living off the
fat of the land reinforced the nullity of West Bengal's
political life. A brain drain of skilled Bengalis to areas
of India offering opportunities denied them at home
ensued. Many left for the US and UK where they
prospered.
This was an unmitigated tragedy. The Bengali
middle class played a pivotal role in the making of
modern India. Its size is significant; and the good
news has been the slow return of these exiles to their
roots. This movement should now gather momentum,
hence big changes can be expected hereon in West
Bengal.
We end where we began. In Tamil Nadu, the hugely corrupt DMK, led by Chief Minister Karunanidhi,
has been thrown out of office and replaced by the
rival AIDMK, led by Jayalalitha. An enraged electorate had exerted their authority; in Assam,
Congress Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has been
returned to power, a sign that his government's work
for social uplift and economic development has been
appreciated by the Assamese people. In Kerala, the
CPM was defeated and a Congress-led coalition has
taken over the reins of power. These have been telling
results and they conveyed a strong message to those
in authority in the states and at the centre.
All said and done, Indian democracy has emerged
strengthened from the exercise. Critics abroad much
given to sneering and stereotyping the country must
think again, assuming they have it in them to think at
all. India has a continuing capacity to surprise itself.

Terrorist poison filtering back to the UK
Defence Secretary Liam Fox has written to Prime
Minister David Cameron protesting the scale of
British overseas aid, according to a leak in The Times.
UK aid is dispensed to a number of countries, some
deserving beneficiaries of such generosity, others less
so. Precisely where Dr Fox thinks aid cuts should
apply is not known. However, the Ministry of
Defence (MoD) is having to endure cutbacks when
Britain's military commitments abroad are expanding:
this mismatch may have brought on the minister's fit
of the vapours, which goes well with sections of the
Tory faithful.
Mr Cameron has promised Pakistan an aid package of £650 million as the presence of Osama bin
Laden in Pakistan has thrown doubt in Washington
and London on Pakistan's commitment to the War on
Terror.
Democratic Senator John Kerry is in Islamabad

conveying to the Pakistani leadership American disquiet at Pakistan habit of facing both ways in this
conflict. Senator Kerry's tone was tactful and emollient but his words warning reflected the growing
impatience back home with a difficult and obstreperous ally. No sooner was this done than news broke of
a Saudi diplomat's assassination in Pakistani port city
of Karachi. The Pakistan Taliban, which is linked to
al-Qaeda, has claimed responsibility. “Until America
stops chasing al-Qaeda and stops drone strikes we
will keep carrying out such things,” said a
spokesman.
Meanwhile, according to a Sunday Times report, a
Terror cell called the “London Boys” trained with an
“al-Qaeda leader in Somalia and and has returned to
Britain in anticipation of attacks demanded by
Osama bin Laden before his death.”
Is British aid going to a terrorist hub?

www.abplgroup.com

3

Thought for the Week
Happiness is when what you think,
what you say, and what you do are in
harmony.
- Mahatma Gandhi

Nursery worker faces jail
after attacking a toddler
A nursery nurse is facing
jail after she attacked a
two-year-old boy with a
space hopper.
Nisha Rani, 22, left the
two-year-old boy in tears
after knocking him to the
floor with the bouncy toy.
Just a week later, the
Coventry Nursery nurse
pushed another boy off a
play mat when he was
waking up after telling the
playgroup, 'shh, this will
be funny'.
Her bullying was
uncovered after a female
student on work experience reported what she
had seen to her tutor who
then called the police.
Rani was convicted of
two counts of common
assault in a one-day trial
and faces jail when she is
sentenced next month.
Coventry Magistrates
Court heard how she
attacked the two-year-old
boy with a space hopper
on September 23 last
year.
Mike Nicklas-Carter,
prosecuting, told the
court, 'The defendant was
employed as a nursery
nurse for children up to
the
age
of
five
years.During that time
several work experience
students from a college
had placements at the
nursery. They became
alarmed by what they had

Nisha Rani

witnessed and made complaints to the college
authorities.
The first assault was
the defendant hitting the
boy over the head with a
space hopper. He fell to
the floor and it was told
that he was in shock by
the incident.'
According to witnesses, the lad struck his head
on 'spongy tarmac' and
needed to be comforted by
staff. Shockingly, a week
later on September 30,
Rani launched a brutal
attack on another little
boy.

Kate's local grocer
faces trial
Hasmukh Singadia, a
shop keeper who went
to the wedding as a personal friend of the
Middleton family is to
appear in court on
fraud and theft charges.
Shingadia runs a
convenience store close
to the royal bride's family home and they regularly visit to buy bread
and milk.
The charges relate
to a sub-post office
Shingadia, 51, ran from
the shop in Upper
Bucklebury, Berks, until it
closed a year ago. He is
accused of stealing ￡
16,000 in a prosecution
brought by Royal Mail

Hasmukh Singadia

Group, according to a
court source.
Shingadia also faces a
fraud charge regarding
cash-in-hand accounting.

Is Tower Hamlets evolving as the
UK's hub of Taliban extremism?
There are serious concerns raised
over the numerous incidents of
extremism reported in the Tower
Hamlets borough of the capital
which has lent it a nickname of the
'Islamic Republic of Tower Hamlets'.
Women, regardless of their faith
have been forced to wear a veil and
upon denial have been victims of
death threats. Gay men have been
abused, verbally as well as physically. Council libraries have been
alleged to have been stocked with
books and DVDs of banned extreme
Islamist preachers. Hostile behaviour towards whites and censorship
over western clothes are some of the
serious issues that residents of
Tower Hamlets are witnessing.
Such incidents are 'not new'
according to a few residents who
strike a resemblance between the
behaviour of such extremists with
that of Taliban in Afghanistan.
The borough has become a home
to many extremists like Richard
Dart who claimed in an internet

video that ‘Prince William, Prince
Harry and the Queen of England are
guilty of funding and supporting the
terrorist attacks that take place in
Muslim lands,’ and was also wanting to turn the Royal wedding into a
'nightmare'. The Briton from Dorset
converted to Islam in 2009 and
renamed himself Salahuddin Dart.
Mayor Lutfur Rahman after his
election in October promised to
work with 'every member of the
community, whether they are Sikh,
Hindu, Muslim, Jew, Christian or
people of no faith'. However there
has been speculations right from
his election itself. He initially stood
as the Labour candidate but was
later deselected by the party after
allegations were made over his ties
with Islamic Forum of Europe
(IFE), an organisation alleged to
believe in jihad and Islamic Sharia
law and aiming to turn Britain and
other European countries into
Islamic republics. Yet, he won the
elections standing as independent

I have a girlfriend, I won't
be deported says robber
An unnamed Sri Lankan
who came to London aged
13, in 2001 was jailed for
15 months following a
robbery. He was set to be
deported after serving his
term in jail but after fighting an 11 month trial, he
has been granted a leave
to remain because he has a
girlfriend in this country
and his solicitor claimed
that his “private and family life” will not be respected if he asked to leave the
country.
The name of the Sri
Lankan who is also a
failed asylum seeker has
not been released as a
spokesman for the Judicial

Communications Office
said that it could bear
“potential risk” to him.
The case has increased
concerns over the ease
with which foreign criminals use human rights legislation to stay in Britain.
A UK Border Agency
spokesman said, “We
were very disappointed
with the courts ruling in
this case and it was in the
public’s interest that we
tried to remove this individual from the UK as any
foreign criminal serving
more than 12 months in
prison is automatically
considered for deportation.”

Faulty medical implants
jeopardising patient's life
stricter regulations to
check safety of these medical devices before they are
approved for widespread
use.
In 2009 the Medicines
and Healthcare Products
Regulatory
Agency,
responsible for monitoring
medical
equipment,
received more than 9,000
reports of "adverse incidents" involving medical
devices - 1,885 of which
involved serious injury
and 202 resulted in death.

Defective
metal
hip
replacements, heart pacemakers and other medical
implants have forced
thousand of patients to
undergo expensive and
painful surgeries in order
to remove them, while
NHS is facing their costly
bills.
The British Medical
Journal has raised serious
concerns over implants
that are failing years earlier than expected and
patients are urging for

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candidate and allegedly with help
of IFE. A national newspaper also
reported it as ‘one of the nastiest
campaigns in recent London political history’.
Many are worried that with
Black, Asian and Minority (BAME)
population of about 49.4 per cent,
few Islamist groups have begun to
dominate the political platform. In
an IFE leaflet it says it wants to
change the ‘very infrastructure of
society, its institutions, its culture,
its political order and its creed;
from ignorance to Islam’.
Councillor Peter Golds, leader
of the Tory opposition in Tower
Hamlets also said that since Mr
Rahman’s election there have been
worrying changes in the way the
council is run. With complaints of
extremism on the rise, there is a
major need to evaluate and eradicate any violent jihadi pattern
breeding in the capital before it
poses any threat to the capital's
sovereignty.

Kill the Indian parrots
How did parrots native to
India and sub-Saharan
Africa arrived in Britain
is unaccounted for but
their exponential growth
in population in and
around
London
has
caused much concern
among
residents.
Following numerous complaints, Department for
Environment, Food and
Rural affairs (DEFRA)
has agreed to a solution
that will see them killed.
Imperial
College
London, which is carrying out the first scientific
inquiry into the bird's
numbers and impact, has
established that from an
initial nesting in London
in 1969, there are now
nearly 32,000 birds, most
of them crowded within
London and South-East.
With their ability to
reproduce words used by
people, many Indians
have nested these parrots

as pets in their homes.
They have colonised
parks and gardens, particularly in London, Surrey
and Kent. Their annual
growth rate - 25% a year has caused much alarm in
official circles and the
aviation industry has also
been affected with reports
of bird-hits.
The rose-ringed parrot
is protected under the
Wildlife and Countryside
Act, but from January
2010, it has been made
legal to kill them under
general license if they are
causing damage to crops
or other birds.
Areas in London that
are affected adversely by
flocks of parrots are
Perivale,
Wormwood
Scrubs,
Stanwell,
Heathrow,
Sutcliffe,
Brockwell park, Hither
Green, Redhill, Wast
Ewell, Hersham, and
Ramsgate in Kent.

Former police commander
freed from prison
Ali Dizaei, a former
Scotland Yard commander
was released from prison
after the court of appeal
ruled that new evidence
'significantly discredits'
principal witness in the
chief's trial last year.
Following the judgement,
Dizaei was released from
Leyhill open prison but
the court said that while it
quashed his conviction,
“the interest of justice”
meant he should face a
retrial.
Dizaei, 48, was convicted over claims that he
framed al-Baghdadi, a
business associate, after a
dispute over money. It
ended his 25 year career
with the Scotland Yard,
where he had climbed up
the ranks. He was jailed
for four years in February
2010 but after Mr. AlBaghdadi's credibility as a

In brief

Indian docs to miss UK's
Med awards
British Medical Journal Awards, famously known as
Doctors' Oscars is set to take place at Hilton, Park
Lane, London, where the most respected names in
the world of medical science will be present and
many will be awarded for their contribution. Six doctors from India, working with Doctors For You have
been invited to receive the award for their relief work
post the 2008 Bihar floods, which killed almost a
thousand and affected three lakh others.
However, delays in processing their UK visa have
left their presence at the event in dark, despite assurances from Minister of External Affairs and an invitation from the British Medical Journal.
The six doctors nominated were part of a team of
110 doctors that treated 1,30,000 people over six
months via mobile clinics, district hospitals and
relief camps.

Life is unfair for the 5
year old victim
Thusha Kamaleswaran, 5, has
been paralysed from the waist
down and is unlikely to walk
again after she was randomly shot
by gangsters in her uncle's shop in
Stockwell, south London on
March 29.
Even after numerous operations, the young girl could not
fully recover from the gunfire.
With only slightest of hopes, her
parents await any positive news of improvement in
the coming weeks. Her mother Sharmila
Kamaleswaran, from Ilford, Essex, said, “What has
happened to my daughter has left me feeling empty
inside. I cannot even eat or sleep properly.”
The five-year-old girl was being kept in the intensive care unit for children and was put into a medically induced coma following the shooting. Three
men, Kazeem Kolawole, 18, Anthony McCalla, 18,
and Nathaniel Grant, 20, all from south London
have been charged with two counts of attempted
murder as the shop assistant at Stockwell Food and
Wine was also shot. They are next due to appear
before the Old Bailey on June 10.

Indian student racially
abused
Three men have been arrested on suspicion of racially assaulting an Indian origin student on a train from
London to Derby.
Saurabh Srivastava, 24, was travelling from
London St Pancras to Derby when he said six men
started racially abusing him. The student of Derby
University said he was ‘humiliated’ after he was covered in fire extinguisher foam and beer during the
attack recently, according to reports in Derby.
A British Transport Police spokesperson said that
two men from Chaddesden, aged 26 and 32, and a 27year-old man from Belper, were arrested following an
appeal for witnesses.
They have been released on bail until June.

Six illegal workers
arrested in Leicester

Former chief, Ali Dizaei
face a retrial

witness was speculated,
Mr Justice Treacy and Mr
Justice Cranston said, “
We are satisfied that it is
in the best interest of justice that there should be a
retrial.”
Ali Dizaei described
his time in prison as 'hell'
and said he was abused
and attacked but held that
his 'integrity is intact'.
While he walked out of
prison he also vowed to
rejoin Scotland Yard.

Six illegal workers were detained in a UK Border
Agency raid at Reset Clothing Ltd in St Saviours
Road, Spinney Hill, Leicester.
Officials sealed all exits at the building, questioned staff and conducted checks on their immigration status to convict three Indian men, one Indian
women, a Sri Lankan man and a Pakistani woman.
Most of them are either failed asylum seekers who do
not have legal right to work or they have overstayed
their visit in the UK. The agency is now preparing to
deport them back to their respective countries while
the company faces £60,000 fine; £10,000 for each illegal worker.

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UK

Asian Voice - Saturday 21st May 2011

White teen mother stabbed
to death after clash with
two muslim families
Laura Wilson, 17, went
missing from her home in
Holmes on October 16,
2010, before she was
repeatedly stabbed and
her body was found from
a canal two days.
Miss Wilson had an
affair with her married
neighbour Ishaq Hussain,
22 and gave birth to their
daughter in June last year.
It was told to the
Sheffield Crown Court
that Hussain denied to
acknowledge the child as
his own and offered no
support, which led to
rows
of
argument
between Miss Wilson and
Hussain.
Miss Wilson also had
an affair with Hussain's
friend Ashtiaq Asghar, 18.
Nicholas Campbell, QC,
prosecuting said the two,
Hussain and Asghar, later
mounted a “mission to
kill Laura Wilson” and
told the jury that “ the
two defendants are jointly
responsible
for
her
death.” However, both of
them from Rotherham
have denied the charges.
The court was told
that Asghar sent a text to
Hussain which read, “I'm
gonna send that kaffir
b**** straight to hell”.

Laura Wilson

Hussain also have a
baby
daughter
with
Wilson's friend Miss Fay
Williams. In an encounter
with Miss Wilson, he
began to panic and
according to a bystander
grabbed and shook her
violently while shouting,
“Don't tell my family.”
Hussain later told the
police that his family
knew about his child with
Williams but he was trying to keep the other
baby's existence secret.
However, Campbell
told the jury that Miss
Wilson loved Asghar and
told his mother that she
“wanted to have babies
with him”, but his mother
became angry and hit her
with a shoe. She said he
would never have a baby
with a white girl and
called her a “dirty white
b****”. With the need of
more evidences, the hearing continues.

Anni Dewani's ashes
immersed in Swedish lake
The family of Indian-origin
woman, Anni Dewani, who was
murdered on her honeymoon in
South Africa, immersed her ashes
in a lake near her hometown in
Sweden on Saturday.
Around 20 close family members and friends attended the service. There was also a request on
Facebook to light-candles in the
memory of the 28-year-old woman.
They had earlier requested that her
widowed husband and his relations stayed away following an
angry row prior to Anni’s funeral
and cremation.
Anni was shot dead in Cape
Town, South Africa, in November
last year. Her husband, 31-year-old
Shrien Dewani, is now in a psychiatric centre near his hometown
Bristol, awaiting possible extradition to South Africa where he
faces murder charges.
Anni's family conducted the
ashes immersion ceremony near
her family home in Mariestad.
Anni's uncle Ashok Hindocha
said, 'We took a boat out on Lake
Vanern, next to Mariestad where
she was born and where she spent
her childhood. She loved swimming, cycling, walking and playing
there on sunny days. It was a very
intimate moment, especially for
her mother, Nilam. It is a relief to
know that her body is finally where

Higher budget for safer playgrounds
In order to give every child
in London a high quality,
accessible and safe play
opportunities,
Play
Association
Network
(PAN) has been campaigning for improved
play spaces and services
and support play work in
the
capital.
Local
London councils have
long been linked with
PAN and have maintained a budget for the
organisation, however a
High Court ruled that
higher degree of work is
still required.
Following the ruling of
the High Court, London
borough leaders have
voted to increase the
budget for a pan-London
grants scheme from ￡
17.691 million to ￡20.767
million. Following extensive legal advice as well as

advice
from
Local
G o v e r n m e n t
Improvement
and
Development (LGID) and
a number of boroughs, the
supplementary consulta-

tion looked at the equalities impacts on each commission, as opposed to
only the umbrella headings under which these
commissions were funded.
Chair
of
London
Councils, Mayor Jules
Pipe
said,
“Overall,
London’s boroughs provide more than ￡1 billion

support to the voluntary
sector
annually
and
London Councils’ grants
programme is a small but
significant part of this.
Deciding its future has
been just one of the
many tough decisions
that London’s 33
local authorities are
consistently
being
forced to make in
these times of straitened budgets.”
Mayor
Pipes
added, “After careful
consideration
of
the
results of the consultation,
supplementary consultation and subsequent recategorisation of some commissions,
London
Councils has agreed a new
budget of just over ￡20
million for the PANLondon programme this
year.”

Rugby League secures Commonwealth
Games recognition
Rugby League’s success as
a growing international
sport has been recognised
by the Commonwealth
Games Federation at their
meeting in the Malaysian
capital Kuala Lumpur.
The Federation gave
its unanimous support to
an application for Rugby
League to become a
Category Three sport, an
important step which will
enable the sport to continue to expand and develop
across the globe.
“This is an exciting
day for Rugby League and
I would like to place on

record my thanks to the
Commonwealth Games
Federation for their support of our application,”
said
David
Gent,
Chairman of the RLIF’s
C o m m o n w e a l t h
Commission.
“Recognition by the
Commonwealth Games
Federation will also enable
Commonwealth countries
in Africa, the Americas,
Asia and the Caribbean to
develop the game and help
the RLIF strengthen competition
at
a
Commonwealth and world
level.”

5

Commonwealth
Games Federation vicepresident HRH Tunku
Imran said, “Category
Three sports are those that
we recognise as working
towards future inclusion
and we are very pleased to
see the high level of commitment by the Rugby
League
International
Federation to further
develop the sport across
the Commonwealth. It is a
key criteria that any sport
on our programme is
played widely across as
many of our member
nations as possible.”

The Hindochas scatter Anni's ashes near her hometown in Sweden

rounding her death are
answered. We know
awho did it. They are in
jail. But the 'why' must
still be exposed. We are
in a very harsh situation.'
Mr Hindocha pleaded with Shrien Dewani
to return to South
Africa. 'Anni is dead and
her husband is a suspect.
A wreath floats where Anni used to swim
Today the family once
again begs him to come to
she belongs. But her soul isn't
South Africa and help clear things
exactly at peace yet. This can only
up,' he said.
happen when all the questions-sur-

International alert for
Mohammed Zubair
Police have put out an
international alert for a
Bradford cab driver wanted in connection with a
double murder investigation, after two women
appeared in Court.
Arab Sultana, 63, and
her
daughter-in-law
Kainat Bibi, 27, both of
Heath Terrace, Barkerend,
appeared before Bradford
magistrates, three days
after they were arrested in
connection with the murders
of
two
men,
Shahbzada Muhammed
Imran
and
Ahmedin
Sayed Khyel.
The badly-beaten bod-

ies of Mr Imran, 27, of
Gloucester Avenue, who
was known locally as
Imran Khan, and 35-yearold Mr Khyel, of London,
were found dumped at the
side of a country road, in
New Lane, near Tong, a
week ago.
Sultana and Bibi were
both charged with murder
and a second charge of
assisting an offender by
destroying or concealing
forensic evidence, when
they appeared at Bradford
Magistrates’ Court.
Shortly after the court
hearing, West Yorkshire
Police issued a photo-

graph of a man they need
to get hold of in connection with the murder
inquiry.
He was named as
Mohammed Zubair, 31,
and
from
Bradford.
However neighbours say
that he could be in
Pakistan.

Immigration: Why stoop so low?
Continued from page 1
Nevertheless, one of
the silly argument of the
government is that abolishing the right to appeal
can save UKBA around ￡
10m a year and the justice
ministry up to ￡24m in
the cost of immigration
judges and tribunals. With
government focusing on
cost-cutting, saving this
money can be made a priority over letting relatives
visit families in the UK.
This new proposal
unveils minister's plans to
curb number of family
members visiting the UK
as it is speculated that
very soon only immediate
family members will be
allowed to attend family
events
and
cousins,
uncles, aunts and grand

parents will not have the
right to do so. Ministers in
support of the proposal
have justified it by stating
that many relatives come
to the UK on short family
visits and never return and
this plan can restrict illegal migrants to settle in
the UK.
On the proposal,
Steve Pound MP told
Asian Voice, “I have been
amazed to find the
Liberal/Conservative government’s proposals actually being welcomed within sections of the community in my part of the
world. seems to be a general feeling that the cost
and extent of major family
weddings has been the
subject of an arms race of
late and now the numbers
and costs are just too high.

The proposed ruling will
not affect close relatives,
who should still receive
visas, but will affect second or third cousins and
some Uncles and Aunties
who may not be close
blood relatives but are valued family members. The
easy thing to do will be to
cry “racism” but my experience is that we need to
look a little more closely at
this proposal.”
But, people belonging
to the Asian community in
the UK or anywhere in the
world will know that
events like weddings are
very special and celebrated on a massive scale and
putting a restriction over
certain family members
will clearly hamper the
significance of the occasion.

6

UK

Asian Voice - Saturday 21st May 2011

Bhavan’s chairman retires
after 40 years of service
By Spriha Srivastava

If ever anyone needed any
proof of the respect Mr
Maneck Dalal commands
for his enormous contribution to the Bhavan and
its cause, then the farewell
event held on 15th May
2011 was enough for evidence. Apart from supporters of the Bhavan and
admirers of Mr Dalal,
some of the most successful business people and
politicians from the Asian
diaspora came to pay tribute to him and his work.
Throughout
the
evening, Mr Dalal was
credited as being the person who steered the
Bhavan, making it the
leading Indian artistic and
cultural organisation in
Great Britain. A citation
was read out by the Vice
President of the Bharatiya
Vidya Bhavan Worldwide,
Justice
Sri
B.N.
Srikrishna.
India’s
High
Commissioner to the UK,
His Excellency Nalin
Surie unveiled a portrait
of Mr Dalal, painted by
Anupa Sahdev, student of
Bhavan’s flute teacher
Clive Bell. Welcoming distinguished guests from the
House of Lords and
Commons and other leaders within the Indian com-

munity, His Excellency,
who, as Bhavan’s patron
chaired the event, said,
“Mr Dalal has had a distinguished and diverse
career; in the midst of it all
he has never forgotten his
Indian roots and his belief
in the vitality and relevance of Indian traditions
and culture. We thank him
for that commitment and
that example he has set
through action.”
One of Bhavan’s very
close
associates
and
patron, Lord Dholakia
who has known Mr Dalal
for the last forty years
thanked him for working
tirelessly to unite the people of Asia, saying what he
has done for the community is remarkable. Former
trustee of the Bhavan
Lord Hameed remarked
how Mr Dalal has given a
lot of energy to the organisation, “gallantly serving
the Bhavan, guiding it and
being the best ambassador
of this noble establishment. “
Someone who has
worked closely with Mr
Dalal on a daily basis is
the Executive Director of
the Bhavan, Dr M.N.
Nandakumara. In his dedication to Mr Dalal, he
commended him for being

a remarkable human being
- simple yet profound.
Mr Joginder Sanger,
who succeeds Mr Dalal
as Bhavan’s Chairman,
praised his working style
calling it unique, saying
he is someone who is
transparent and sincere
in whatever he does. He
said there was no doubt
that Mr Dalal’s departure would create a vacuum. He went on to say,
“I can only hope we will
continue the work he
started thirty eight years
ago and continue to add
to his legacy.”
Mr Dalal in his
response thanked everyone for their kind words
saying: “I am not sure I
deserve all the praise lavished on me but it was
nice to listen to”. He
took the audience on a
trip down memory lane,
talking about some of
the challenges he came
across during the early
days of the Bhavan,
when the institute was a
little known building in
central London.
The audience were
treated to a special cultural programme by the
Bhavan’s dance students, and to dinner
afterwards.

Cameron plans to close
Ealing Hospital
Virendra Sharma, MP for
Ealing Southall led a
protest outside Ealing
Hospital when the Prime
Minister David Cameron
visited the hospital to give
a speech about the government’s plans to reform the
NHS. He was joined by
Ealing Council leader
Julian
Bell,
Southall
Councillors,
Trade
Unionists and local residents who are campaigning
to
save
Ealing
Hospital. Protesters held
up placards that said
Cameron had plans to

close Ealing Hospital.
Virendra
Sharma
explained to patients and
staff entering the hospital
that earlier leaked plans by
NHS London to close
Ealing Hospital’s A&E
Department were still on
the government’s agenda
and that recent briefings
by outgoing PCT managers
to incoming GP fund-holders spoke of a £1bn budget
gap in NW London NHS
that could only be closed
by reconfiguring acute
services. Doctors’ leaders
understood this to mean

Hospital closures and
Virendra
Sharma
explained that all the evidence pointed to a government plan to close Ealing
Hospital.
Speaking at the protest
about David Cameron’s
speech Virendra Sharma
said, “It is a bit of a cheek
for David Cameron to
come to Ealing Hospital
when he is planning to
close it. He talks about not
taking risks with and protecting the NHS, but by
implementing
these
reforms he will be wasting

He is witty, he is creative
and he can make you
laugh and dance at the
same time. He is India’s
latest Youtube sensation
– Wilbur Sargunaraj. For
all those of you who still
haven’t heard of him, it’s
high time you familiarise
yourself with the growing fever of Wilbur
Sargunaraj. And it’s not
tough. All you need to do
is search for him in
Youtube and you will see
his unique videos by the
name of “Supercall
Solutions” and his hit
songs
like
Love
Marriage, Chicken 65
and the latest addition to
the list is Simple
Superstar.
His motto is to
“Make the common
extraordinary” and thus
in most of his videos you
will find that the people
are from one of the destitute centres in Tamil
Nadu. This centre has
been
supported
by
Wilbur’s family ever
since he was a little boy.
In a recent conversation
he said that he always
wanted a platform to do
something for the people
of this centre. Originally
from Tamil Nadu, this
multi-talented individual
started with his first ever
video titled the “Blog
Song” urging netizens to
visit his website.
“Blog
Song”,
uploaded on YouTube in
July
2007,
was
Sargunaraj’s first music
video. It was composed
while he was on a field
trip in Tokyo in 2005. “At
that time, blogs were
very popular and the
standard statement on
the internet was, ‘Please
check my blog!’ So I
decided to write a song
on it,” he says.
Recently he was in
London for the launch of
his CD at the RichMix
centre in Shoreditch and
performed for a diverse
crowd full of not only
Indians but English,
Scottish, Irish, Italians
and Germans. It is
miraculous how with

just his sense of humour
and creativity he has
come such a long way
and has become India’s
first and biggest Youtube
star. An extremely humble and down to earth
person, Wilbur’s miracle
can touch your lives and
you will see yourself
humming his songs nonstop.
Everything about him
is different, starting from
his style, his jokes and
his songs. The best part
is he makes you feel comfortable
immediately.
When I went for his
show in London, I hadn’t

been introduced to the
Wilbur fever that much.
But from the time he
came on the stage till the
wee hours of the night
when the show ended, he
was on fire. His never
ending
energy
is
admirable and he takes
you along on this amazing journey of cultural
diversity.
We have all heard the
concept of Intelligence
Quotient
(IQ)
and
Emotional
Quotient
(EQ), but how many of
us have heard the concept of Cultural Quotient
(CQ)? Well, Wilbur is
trying to spread it as he
travels across the globe
making people laugh and
dance at the same time.
Wilbur says, its one thing
to love others but it’s
another thing to move
your desire to ability.
The ability to love and be
loved is the deepest purpose
of
humanity.
Cultural
Intelligence
helps increase our ability
to love others in this
world and embrace love
ourselves.
Dressed in black

pants, white shirt tucked
in, slim tie and ‘Gelf’
glares throughout his
videos,
Wilbur
has
already carved a niche
for himself as a multi-talented comedian. He can
do stand up comedy, just
as good as he can sing.
His songs and his
Supercall solution videos
have made him extremely popular not just
among the South Indian
community but across
different cultures.
During a recent conversation, he said that
“when people see only
one or two songs about
me, they think I am making fun of them. But
madam, if you go
through the other videos,
I am talking about things
that are considered
taboo, like how to use
the eastern latrine. Now
people are saying I am
disgracing the country.
How am I doing this? It
is
important
for
Westerners to know
this.”
Wilbur’s idea in life is
to make the common
extraordinary and thus
all his songs revolve
around this idea. His latest song on Simple
Superstar is a classic
example of that. The
song suggests that just
because you have a Phd
or a MBA or a MSC or
any other big degree,
doesn’t make you successful. You can be a simple superstar without
having any of these
degrees.
Post his performance
in London, he had
another rocking performance in Melbourne. The
man is slowly taking over
the world of creative
comedy. His show is
such that one can leave
behind all their worries
and enjoy to the fullest.
And it doesn’t matter
where you come from,
since he believes everyone is a simple superstar.
So you don’t need a Phd
or a MBA or any other
degree. Just be yourself
and you will have fun.

Let us know what you think.
Email Spriha at spriha@abplgroup.com
vital tax payers’ money
that could be used to protect frontline health services and hospitals under
threat like Ealing. I will
stand shoulder to shoulder
with local people and the
Doctors and nurses to
defend Ealing Hospital
from Cameron’s plans for
its closure. These govern-

ment reforms of the NHS
are
dangerous
and
wrong.”
Leader
of
Ealing
Council Councillor Julian
Bell said, “We have known
for some time that the
government has plans to
close Ealing hospital so we
will stand with the local
community to defend our

local hospital. It beggars
belief that Cameron can
come to Ealing promising
to protect the NHS knowing full well that there is a
secret plan threatening the
hospitals very existence.
His reforms are a costly
gamble with the NHS that
we all love and will fight to
protect.”

UK

Asian Voice - Saturday 21st May 2011

Four Indians join Tony
Blair Faith Foundation
Tony
Blair
has
announced names of
four young Indians that
are set to join his Faith
Foundation
Act
Fellowship,
“Malaria
Champion”. For the first
time India has been represented in the programme. These young
people will be tasked
with building understanding between different religious communities by mobilising them
around the common
cause of eradicating
deaths from malaria,
which this year alone
caused
more
than
750,000
unnecessary
deaths.
The
four
Indian
Fellows
will
work
together in interfaith
pairs in New Delhi for
the next year. Aparajita
Bharti, a 21 year old
Buddhist from Vikas
Puri will be paired with
Sarmistha Pattanayak, a
24 year old Hindu from
Bhubaneswar. Ayesha
Nusrat, a 22 year old
Muslim from New Delhi
will be paired with Rohit
S, a 21 year old Hindu
from Bangalore.
Tony Blair, Founder
and Patron of the Tony
Blair Faith Foundation
said, “For the first time
this generation has the
opportunity to do two
astonishing things; to
work together alongside
those of other faiths

from all corners of the
world and to meet one
of the world’s greatest
global health challengesmalaria.”
The
Foundation
received almost 700
applications
from
around the world and
has chosen just 30 of the
most outstanding young
people of faith to be
ambassadors for its
Faiths Act . The Fellows
represent a diverse cross
section of the faith traditions as
10% are
Hindu, 30% Muslim,
3.3%
Sikh,
6.6%
Buddhist, 3.3%, Bahá’í,
26% Christian, 3.3%
Quaker and 17% Jewish,
including the various
denominations.
Reacting to the news
that he had been selected for the Fellowship
Rohit S, a Hindu from
Bangalore said, “I come
from a family where
service to the community was always highlighted & the only way to

lead a fulfilling life was
to make a difference &
make my life count by
giving
back.
What
inspired me was as
always to be amidst the
precious few people in
the world who stood to
contribute selflessly.”
The Fellows will
receive a month of training in London and then
embark on a year long
journey of interfaith
service. The four Indian
Fellows will be based at
the Kutumb Foundation
and Deepalaya in New
Delhi.
The inaugural Faiths
Act Fellows were highly
successful last year;
inspiring over 14,000
people of different faiths
to act together educated
40,000 people about the
MDGs,
raised
over
£100,000 for malaria
prevention over their
year’s work, matched by
Tony Blair bringing the
total funds raised to
£0200,000.

Harsha Sharma, a 24
year old Hindu from
Vauxhall, South London
has also been selected
and will work at Health
Poverty Action in South
London.

Hindus laud British
Catholics for re-establishing
“meatless Fridays”
Hindus have shown admiration towards Catholic
Bishops' Conference of
England
and
Wales
(CBCEW) for re-establishing the practice of
“abstaining from meat” on
Fridays, which will come
into effect from this year.
CBCEW, in its Spring
plenary session in Leeds,
reportedly resolved to reestablish the practice of
Friday penance, which
“should be fulfilled by
abstaining from meat”.
“The law of the Church
requires Catholics to
abstain from meat on
Fridays”, it pointed out.
In a statement, Rajan
Zed,
President
of
Universal
Society
of
Hinduism said “Why to
restrict it only to England

and Wales? Being the
Church law, His Holiness
Pope Benedict XVI should
issue a worldwide directive of meatless Fridays
from the Vatican City to be
followed
by
every
Catholic”.
CBCEW,
headquartered in London, “is the
permanent assembly of
Catholic bishops in the
two countries", whose values include, “Inclusivity,
Service,
Solidarity,
Spirituality, Stewardship".
There has also been
support for Beatle's Sir
Paul McCartney’s call for
Meat-Free Monday movement, which aims at persuading public to go vegetarian on Mondays to slow
global warming.

BBC search for ‘strict’ Indian parents for
unruly UK teens
A BBC crew from the television series
World's Strictest Parents is traveling all
the way to India to look for parents that
can teach British teens to behave. The
TV show which was broadcasted in the
UK in 2009 attracted a massive audience and featured Pune-based M S
Unnikrishnan, his wife Madhu and son
Siddharth. The Pune couple were a big
hit on the show and keeping that in
mind, the crew will be enhancing their
search in India, especially Pune. They
are overwhelmed with the parenting
standards in the city and believe it is of

the highest quality.
The TV series developed by
TwentyTwenty Television is looking for
couples who can also instill good work
ethics and socially responsible behaviour in teenagers from the UK, who are
generally considered to be highly misbehaved. The makers also want to show
Pune as an aspirational city where parents believe in instilling discipline,
boundaries and respect in their children
while embracing progress and development, said Laura Jones, researcher with
TwentyTwenty TV.

Business schools missed
the opportunity that evolved
from economic crisis
Business schools failed
to grasp opportunities
created by the global
economic firestorm of
2008-9 to benchmark
their theories and create
a
new
behavioural
understanding of the
way financial markets
work, revealed a study at
Cambridge
Judge
Business School.
Dr Kamal Munir,
Reader in Strategy and
Policy at the Cambridge
Judge Business School,
says that in social sciences the belief is that
disruptions are the best
time to study social life
and its constituent parts.
He said, “This was a
huge disruption. People
like Alan Greenspan and
others including famous
Nobel Prize winning
economists were openly
admitting they had suddenly discovered they
did not really understand how the markets
worked. There was much
to
be
learned
as

economies and countries
went under and a realisation that sentiment
and expectation drives
the markets rather than
national decision making.”
Dr Munir said that
the crisis was a great
opportunity for business
schools, through their
empirical and behavioural work, to develop a
new theoretical understanding of how the markets work.
However he believes
that the opportunity has
not been lost entirely as
he said, “The world was
crying out for a new theory around how the markets work and business
schools just did not step
up to the plate. We need
to step back and look at
the
bigger
picture.
Continuing to help businesses to make even
more money is missing
the point right now.”
Dr Munir says the
traditional path created

through conventional
economic theory is no
longer appropriate. “The
onus is now really on
business schools. We
cannot remain cheerleaders for big business.
We must go back to
duelling with economists
and tell the world this is
where we stand; this is
what we agree with in
conventional theory and
this is what we disagree
with. We are in danger of
losing the forest for the
trees. We must go back
to the big picture.”
He added, “This was
a goldmine of events and
of behaviour which
would
easily
have
informed or led to the
generation of new theory. I’m trying to highlight
the fact that business
schools should be engaging more with contemporary events like this,
an event that affected a
large majority of the
population of this planet.”

Curry pioneer ‘too ill’ to stand in dock
An ex-boss of a popular
Balti
restaurant
in
Birmingham has been
declared unfit to stand a
trial on fraud charges
because he is depressed,
it has been claimed.
Mohammed Ajaib,
former owner of Al
Faisal’s in Sparkbrook,
was due to appear at the
city’s crown court last
week over his alleged
involvement in a £2.9
million mortgage fraud.
But legal sources claim
the proceedings have
been put on hold
because of Mr Ajaib’s

fragile mental state,
reports the Sunday
Mercury.
Mr Ajaib, 68, originally
appeared
at
B i r m i n g h a m
Magistrates’ Court in
December 2009, charged
with three counts of conspiracy to defraud and
two other counts of
fraud. It is alleged there
was an attempt to
defraud Lloyds TSB,
Alliance and Leicester
and the Yorkshire Bank
out of a total of £2.9 million between January
2007 and February 2008.

BACL honours MP
Harrington
The British Asian Conservative Link, or BACL, hosted a
prestigious reception in honour of MP Richard Harrington
at London’s exclusive Carlton Club. Among around 80
guests were Lord Dolar Popat and Communities Secretary
Eric Pickles MP. Full story next week.

Hindu Goddess
celebration
Final preparations are underway
for a major spiritual festival next
month devoted to Maa Hingraj, the
Hindu goddess of healing and
virtue. The one-day free event at
Shri Girnara Soni Samaj Centre in
Leicester on June 5 will feature
song, folk dance, food, a series of
religious ceremonies and is being
organised by Leicester’s Wanza
Darji ‘tailor’ community. The original temple of Maa
Hingraj, pictured, is situated in a remote, desolate
area of Pakistan’s Balochistan province, 250km northwest of Karachi. All welcome. For more information
contact Harish Mandalia on 0772 3035012.

Mindy to share good
practice
Mindy Bassi, Head of Medicines
Management at NHS Nottingham
City, has been accepted onto a special exchange programme to learn
about how healthcare systems
across Europe operate and share
best practice. The programme will
run from May 23 to June 17, at the
end of which all participants across
Europe will come together in Turku,
Finland to share their learning. Mindy, pictured, is
specifically interested in exploring how medicines can
be used more effectively and the developing role of the
pharmacist in supporting patients, carers.

Godsiff: Insurers ‘milking
drivers’
Insurance firms are “milking the
motorist” by charging Birmingham
drivers extortionate premiums just
because of their postcode, a city MP
has warned. Roger Godsiff (Lab,
Hall Green) has urged the government to stop insurers taking advanvtage of their “captive audience”.
During a House of Commons
debate on the insurance industry, MP Godsiff, pictured, highlighted the case of one Sparkhill resident
who discovered he was being charged four times as
much as somebody with a different postcode.

The case had been investigated by West Midland
Police’s Economic Crime
Team. Last week, one of
Mr Ajaib’s family members told a Sunday
Mercury reporter: “We

had to take him to the
doctors. He’s not been
well at all, it’s not physical. He has been very
depressed.” It is unclear
whether Mr Ajaib’s trial
will now go ahead.

Sarbat da Bhalla –
Welfare of all
Birmingham-

A
based community
organisation,
Sikh Nari Manch
UK, has hosted
its annual interfaith conference.
Representatives, pictured, from six faiths – Sikh,
Christian, Muslim, Baha’I, Quakers and Buddhist –
shared tenets from their faith, as well as inspirational
stories from their lives. The all-day event featured food,
Indian dance, Sikh martial arts, world music and networking. To find out more visit www.sikhnarimanch.com

New role for Sonica
Lawyer Sonica Dahri has become the first in Britain to
qualify as a solicitor through the live events industry.
Sonica, 33, has secured a job with the NEC Group after
completing a three-year training contract ‘in house’ with
her new employer, which manages a host of venues
including the LG Arena and ICC in Birmingham. The
private sector employs around 15,000 lawyers across
Britain, but 93 per cent of them still learn the trade at
law firms with many law graduates finding it tough to
attain work.

Woman left disabled by
driver on mobile
A
mum-of-two
from
Birmingham has been left
disabled after being hit by a
speeding driver who was on
his mobile phone. Victim
Jane Stables, 49, was travelling home after a night out when their taxi smashed into
another car driven by 21-year-old Shahzad Amar. Mrs
Stables, pictured, a carer for her 14-year-old autistic son
James, said: “What happened to me is a story of hope. I
should have died. I just had a will to live, I really did.”
Amar, from Sparkhill, Birmingham, has been jailed for
eight months after admitting dangerous driving. He was
also banned from the roads for three years.

Shamed dentist
disqualified
A disgraced dentist who overcharged NHS patients in
Worcestershire by thousands of pounds has been banned
from the profession. Jaspal Singh Bachada, 37, duped
patients into paying inflated charges and then tried to
cover up their scam
through the “wholesale
destruction”
of
records. Bachada was
jailed for 20 months in
October
with
coaccused
Ikhlaq
Hussain, 38, of Alum
Rock,
Birmingham.
Bachada, pictured right, was given 20 months and
Hussain, left, 30 months in jail.

Benefit cheat caught
A Birmingham man who funded a mortgage on his own
property by making false housing benefit claims totalling
£11,117 on behalf of his mother has been sentenced to a
12-week suspended prison sentence. Ukil Miah, 26, of
Osborne Road, was also given a 12-month community
order and told to pay £250 costs, at Birmingham Crown
Court.

News in Brief
One in five young on dole
An alarming rate of one in five young people in the
West Midlands is out of work. Official figures show
that 72,000 people aged 18-24 are unemployed in the
region, an unemployment rate of 20 per cent – twice
the average adult unemployment rate in the region.

CCTV cameras being
removed
Work has started to remove surveillance cameras in
targeted areas in Birmingham. The CCTV cameras
were part of a highly controversial counter-terrorism
initiative from two predominantly Muslim suburbs,
Sparkbrook and Washwood Heath, and were set up as
part of the £3 million Project Champion.

PA jailed for 33k scam
Angela Tilling, a PA with accountancy firm
PriceWaterhouseCoopers in Birmingham has been
jailed for nine months for fiddling £33,000 in an
expenses scam. Tilling, 44, who lived with her parents
in Rednal, and claimed she had a five-year affair with
her married boss, was jailed at Isleworth Crown Court
in London after admitting six counts of fraud.

Muslim prayer clock
The company behind the world’s most expensive
clock to celebrate the royal wedding has unveiled its
latest creation – the world’s first luxury Muslim
prayer clock. Smith of Derby launched the prayer
clock, which comes with a gold-leaf finish and sells for
£20,000.

Favourite radio stations
With 822,000 listeners, Heart FM remains the most
popular Midlands radio station, new figures show.
BRMB reaches 404,000 people every week, while
Galaxy has 459,000 listeners and BBC WM has
210,000 listeners, according to industry monitor
Rajar.

New book: Doing
Business in India
A fascinating new
book,
entitled
Doing Business
in India, has been
launched.
The
book, authored
by
Pawan
Budhwar
of
Aston Business
School and Arup
Varma, both professors, was officially unveiled last week by Mr C
Gururaj Rao, Midlands’ highest-ranking Indian
diplomat. The book launch was part of a fifth seminar, in a series, themed India and China: Outward
FDI from Emerging Powerhouses, hosted by the
Aston-India Foundation, founded by Professor
Budhwar, one of Britain’s leading, ultra-modest and
down-to-earth
academics.
Photo:
Professor
Budhwar, left, with Mr Rao.

SAS soldier in sex
offences
An SAS hero from the Midlands who served in Iraq
and Afghanistan has been charged with 52 child sex
offences, including 12 rapes. Walsall-born Ian
Tuckley, 31, is also charged with 21 counts of making
indecent photographs of children. The veteran soldier
is to stand trial on June 6 at Worcester Crown Court
with his paramedic brother-in-law Martin Finney,
aged 40. Finney faces 24 sex offences, including the
rape of a female under 17 and administering an anaesthetic gas.

Asian Voice - Saturday 21st May 2011

9

10

YOUR VOICE

Asian Voice - Saturday 21st May 2011

Minority parties gaining
strength in India

Not putting two and two
together

Is Cameron becoming
another Blair?

Rethink immigration
policies

The results of the state elections in
India has shown that regional and communal minority religious parties gained
support at the expense of two main
national parties namely the Congress and
the BJP.
The BJP dream of forming the next
government with its former ally AGP was
shattered in Assam and in four states
Tamilnadu, west Bengal , Kerala and
Puducherry they did not win a single seat
and the party has been clearly rejected by
voters in these states.
The congress party only in Assam did
well in the Assembly elections. This was
due to the fact that opposition political
parties were divided and the Congress
won very easily. The All India United
Democratic Front (AIUDF) led by perfume baron Badrudin Ajmal which is
basically a Muslim party supported by
Bengali Muslims came second. The
Muslim population in Assam is more
than 35 per cent and they are concentrated in border areas with Bangladesh.
In Tamilnadu and Puducherry the
Congress party was completely wiped
out. In Tamilnadu the Congress party got
only a handful of seats and In Puducherry
the Congress party lost the control of the
state Assembly to splinter Congress
party (NR Congress) led by Rangaswamy.
In West Bengal the regional party
Bangla Congress won most of the
Assembly seats with the help of the
Congress party which acted as a junior
partner since the Congress knew that
they would have got only a handful of
seats if it contested all alone. Muslims
who constitute more than 35 per cent of
the West Bengal population supported
Bangla Congress this time and they were
rewarded with important positions in the
state cabinet. The national party CPM
was completely wiped out in West
Bengal.
In Kerala the United Democratic
Party ( UDF) led by the Congress party
came to power with a slender majority
with the help of Muslim and Christian
backed parties Muslim League (MUL)
and Kerala Congress. Even though
Hindus are in majority, the Chief
Minister’s post and other important portfolios are cornered by Muslims and
Christians. In Kerala Hindus are reduced
as Minorities.
In short the recent election results
show Muslims and Christian communities in Kerala and Muslims in West
Bengal and Assam dictated which party
should come to power and without their
support the Congress party would not
have come to power. In Tamilnadu and
Puducherry the regional parties won the
elections at the expense of Congress and
another regional party DMK.

The saying goes ‘once bitten twice
shy’. What about deception; would it be
‘once bitten always shy’ as is the case
with the US and Pakistan. Deception is
as old as history. From time immemorial
statecraft and deception have gone hand
in hand. Such prolonged deception, however, relates to enemy countries. In the
case of Pakistan, the US bestowed upon
it the status of ‘major non NATO ally’ at
par with Turkey and Australia. Since 9/11
the common enemy was supposed to be
Al–Qaeda and the terror outfits targeting
US interests in the world. That in the bargain Pakistan was also hurting badly from
terror attacks on its own soil should
have, if anything, further cemented the
relationship. The Navy Seals daring raid
on Abbottabad in the first week of May
2011 has paid to the last vestiges of trust,
if any remained, that is.
The bigger question that needs
answer should be ‘why did the US not
learn from what happened in stateside
USA on September 11 2001? A week
later on September 16th 2001 President
George W. Bush named Bin Laden the
Prime suspect. Bin Laden issued a statement ‘I stress that I have not carried out
this act’. (TIMES reported)
According to news items appearing in
and around the subcontinent Osama kept
on denying that he had ordered the 9/11
attacks. Later, possibly a month after
the attack, Osama took responsibility for
it. The question must again arise ‘was it
an afterthought’. Had he been the architect of 9/11 why would he have denied it
in the first instance.
Just as the Pakistan Army chief and
the ISI chief in May 2011 disclaimed all
knowledge that Bin Laden was living in
Abottabad since 2005, is it reasonable to
believe that neither the Pakistan Army
nor the ISI had knowledge that elements
trained in Pakistan under ‘their’ tutelage
and that of their ally Osama Bin Laden
were unaware of what was afoot.
It is interesting to note than when the
9/11 Commission set up by President
George W. Bush published its report
many sensitive portions were not
released. What did those sensitive portions contain? Were there indications of
the Pakistan military and ISI involvement?
Notwithstanding the construction
that has been put on the harrowing
events of September 11, 2001, practically
every major ally of the US would have
concluded that it would have been well
nigh impossible for any terrorist organization in the world to have orchestrated
an attack of such amazing depth, extent
and complexity without the facilitation of
a major government agency.
Still difficult to put two and two
together!
Vinod Saighal
Via-Email

When in opposition, David Cameron
was critical of Blair and Brown, especially in their involvement in various conflicts that stretched the ability of our
armed forces to the limit. Now he is following into their footsteps, so eager and
ready to intervene in Libya, advocating a
regime change.
Cameron was elected to sort out the
economic mess left behind by the previous government; instead he is creating
more economic mess with his bizarre and
unpopular policy of starving industry of
capital, reducing our once mighty armed
forces to a ragtag outfit and burdening
students with insurmountable debt that
may rival a small mortgage. Yet unwilling
to reform our banks, our contribution to
EU coffers and to stop the permanent
decline of our manufacturing industry.
What is wrong with our politicians?
Why do they live in the past thinking that
we have an empire to run? Germany and
Japan lost the war but certainly they won
on the prosperity front. Germany is the
best industrialized nation with unsurpassed monthly balance of payment surplus of some 40 billion Euros. We are
paupers, now even losing our self respect,
a banana republic all but in name, thanks
to our politicians of every persuasion.
Germany and Japan, although mighty
nations, concentrate on economic front,
creating wealth and improving living
standard of their people and leaving the
international scene to the gullible US and
Britain who are on the verge of bankruptcy.
LibDem and in particular Nick Clegg
is committing political hara-kiri, suicide
by associating with the Conservatives.
This was a golden opportunity for Nick
Clegg to play a responsible part, curb
excessive enthusiasm by supporting the
government from outside, issue by issue
and show his maturity and intellectual
ability. Instead the lure and the trimmings of power are too strong for him to
resist.
God save us from self propelling
politicians.

Although I am not a great commentator on political issues, I feel that I
need
to
write
to
Gujarat
Samanchar/Asian Voice for the need to
make some waves on the proposed
changes being considered by the
Conservative government in respect of a
plan to curb immigrant family visits for
weddings.
I think it would be a huge shame if
the Conservatives were to tighten up
issuing visitor visas for guests who were
coming to the UK to attend a wedding.
As you know, in the Indian community
whenever there is a wedding, large numbers of relatives both from India and
elsewhere come to the UK because they
see this as an opportunity to meet the
rest of the family and the UK friends
who they have heard of. In fact, a lot of
UK Gujaratis send tickets to their relatives in India when their son or daughter
is getting married as they believe that
this would be a good way to get relatives
to come to the UK, particularly those
who have been unable to visit the UK
primarily because they cannot afford the
air ticket. Generally, all guests who
come for weddings return back to their
homes -if they do over stay their visit in
the UK, then this is up to the British
government to ensure that they have satisfactory measures in place to catch the
guests who overstay as opposed to making a blanket change to the issuing of
visas in respect of guests attending weddings.
I believe that the immigration policy
of this country under the Labour government has been very lapse and they
have allowed a large number of immigrant population from the Indian subcontinent to come and settle here one
way or the other and if there are any
measures to be taken, it is this they have
to change( including student visas)
rather than having a clamp down on
guests who are coming to the UK to
attend a wedding and also deny an
appeal against a visa application that is
rejected.
Kaushik Desai
Via-Email

Arun Vaidyanathan
Via-Email

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Asian Business Publications Ltd (ABPL) is not in any way responsible for the goods
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and services, should they feel the need to do so.

Bhupendra M. Gandhi
Via-Email

Dancing on the streets is justified
Mr Dinesh Sheth's unjust opposition to dancing on the streets of
America to mark assassination of
Osama bin Laden is disappointing. His
sympathiy for cold blooded killing is
invalid in view of cold blooded massacre
of victims, at the behest of Osama, leaving trail of cripples, corpses, blood and
skulls.
Gandhigiri has not helped to curb
terrorism, therefore America's ruthless
killing of Osama bin Laden is justified.
Dancing is expression of joy at
assassination of a terrorist costing trillions of dollars and jeopardising
150,000 lives.Thus the dancing was an
expression of joy at global peace that
will follow death of the icon of terror-

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ism.
Americans undertook desperate
expedition due to inaction by the pampered ally - Pakistan. The successful
expedition was as daring as the Raid on
Entebbe by Israel in 1975.
The whole world heaved sigh of
relief when a chapter of terrorism
ended. Frequency, viciousness and
effectiveness of terrorism will not be the
same when its head is gone.
Even though Hindus have not seen
asura or Gods, they dance to mark their
killings which occurred 10,000 years
ago, so why not dance at recent news of
death of Osama.
Ramesh Jhalla
Via-Email

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Cricket crazy Indians for the first time was seen
so euphoric on Monday morning, as they
expected a couple of Oscars. British Indians in
the UK, Dharavi slums, the shanty township of
Mumbai, a village in Uttar Pradesh and almost
the entire Bollywood waited in expectation,
glued to their TV sets. They burst into celebrations as one by one, their heroes, the actors of
the British Indian film and the music maestro, A
R Rahman bagged the top awards in the world
of entertainment.
British actress Kate Winslett also won the
Oscar after having missed it almost five times
earlier.
‘Smile Pinki’, a short documentary on a
cleft-lipped Indian girl in Uttar Pradesh directed
by American director Megan Mylan, won the
Oscar for the Best Documentary (Short).
-/1% /. 0!'%

Like mother's touch and Hindu Primary School
mother's milk, mother to open in Redbridge
tongue has no substitute
Asian voice and Gujarat
Samachar with Sangat
Community Centre organized
a
seminar
on
“Advantages of mothertongue teaching”on 7th
May at their Harrow premises.
Mother tongue, as the
term suggests, is closest to
a person's heart. Like
mother's touch and mother's milk, it can never find a
substitute.
Psychiatric
research shows that a
hearty conversation in
one's mother tongue gives a
high to a person in distress.
Modern psychology also
lays tremendous stress on a
child's connection with the
mother tongue. Speaking
in our native language
proves an important link to
our family,culture,community and our country;
"That's the deepest layer of
our identity." The immense
fulfillment you get while
talking your tongue stays
uncommented, it is for you
to feel.
While interacting, it
was found out that most of
the people participating
were of Gujarati origin,
quite a few were reasonably
fluent
in
Gujarati
while some had to express
themselves in Gujlish
(Gujarati +English). This
is a new language formed
with result of Gujarati people adopting English, and
in wide usage of English,
forgetting their own language or mixing both to
make a bad cocktail. The
very scene suggested that
we are becoming handicapped, we are losing our
tongue. When we lose our
tongue, whatever we try to
talk would not have that
impact, now read between
lines, that explains that
when we lose our mother
tongue over other language, we are losing part of
ourselves, our origin and
our real identity.
Discussion on “mothertongue teachings and its
advantages” went on for 3
hours, where everyone discussed about the decreasing level of mother-tongue
usage and its impact on
family life and the consequent disadvantage in
the sustenance of the heritage. Perhaps the better
word is “Asmita” (heritage). I am unable to
express the real resonance
behind the word Asmita.
But in brief, Asmita means
pride-esteem, that refers to

our origin and history. Our
mother tongue synonymous to Asmita reflect
one’s
ethnic
backgrounds which is characteristic of what we actually
are.
While connecting with
others, we cannot forget
what we are. Be local and
act global. The advocacy
here is not to just use our
own language. Adopt as
many language as you can
but in adoption of global,
you do not need to forget
local. Learning mother
tongue is a means of
increasing appreciation of
the multi-cultural nature of
the present society, and
maintains its linguistic and
cultural diversity.
The objective of learning mother tongue should
be to promote, foster and
propagate the cultural heritage, within the framework
of multiculturalism with a
view to achieve the goal –
‘unity in diversity’ in a
more cohesive, equitable
and harmonious way .
Another medium of speech
may bring with it a current
of new ideas. But the mother tongue is one in which a
man or a woman is born. A
person’s native speech is
almost like her/his shadow,
inseparable from her/his
personality.
Britain was described
as a nation of traders by
Napolean. In today’s interdependent world Britain
like other countries strive
on international trade and
investments. Among the
new Britons whether our
mother tongue is Bengali,
Hindi,
Gujarati,
Punjabi,Tamil, Urdu or any
other, most of us wish to
acquire more success
through professions and
business where it is necessary to use other languages.
Today in India, Gujaratis
are marching with confidence and speed on the
road to progress. Success in
diversity, but with roots as
the foundation. The new
generation with absence of
Sanskar (culture) is a serious matter of concern?.
A child's brain has
tremendous scope for
absorption in the initial
years. Teach them as many
laguages as you can , but
with start of its mothertongue.Children who come
to school with a solid foundation in their mother
tongue develop stronger literacy abilities in the school

language. The two languages are interdependent.
Both languages nurture
each other when the educational and home environment permits children
access to both languages.
Balanced bilingualism or
even
multi-lingualism
brings many positive cognitive benefits
Modern research has
revealed that monolingual
people only use 20% of
their brain! When another
language is learned, a different area of the brain is
activated and engaged, utilizing a greater percentage
of the brain.
And that’s why the people
suffering
from
Alzheimeir or Dementia
can get lot of brain-exercise
by learning languages, even
in later years and thus can
minimize the effects of the
disease.
Speaking
mother
tongue will also preserve
family bonds and lessening
of
cultural
conflicts
between
generations.”
Children can easily communicate with their grandparents and homeland fraternity. “The great and the
most powerful gift a parent
can give to their child is to
pass their language and
their culture”.
Mr Arjun Sharma, a
former teacher in Brent
produces regularly analysis
of the inmates in Her
Majesty's prisons. Mr
Sharma has established
that compared to the population in the country and in
the prisons the lowest percentage comes from India
communities
especially
Gujaratis, Hindus and
Jains. What is the reason
for less crime in this community? Is it because that
they
are
God-fearing
and law-abiding only.
Oh! its just that we
don’t get caught. Well this
is a joke. But the very fact
suggest that we are not very
much involved in crime. It
is matter of pride and itself
manifest in importance of
our ethics, culture and
community.
Let us all get together
and share our views in preserving our heritage and
culture, with saving our
language and thus our
asmita.
Response to this effort
would be appreciated on
cb@abplgroup.com

CB

European leaders urge to ban mobile
phones in schools
A council of Europe committee examined the
severe harms that mobile
phones and computers
with wireless networks
poses and said it is essential to ban its use in
schools in order to pro-

tect children.
In its report, the committee stated that it was
crucial to avoid repeating
the mistakes made when
public health officials
were slow to recognise
the dangers of asbestos,

tobacco smoking and lead
in petrol. The report highlighted the potential risks
of mobile phones, cordless telephones, baby
monitors
and
other
devices on a developing
brain.

A proposed new primary
school in the Barkingside
area of Redbridge is to be
established in September
next year, following a
school
competition
decided upon by the
Office of the Schools
Adjudicator (the OSA).
Chairman of the IFoundation, the organisation behind the proposal, Mr Nitesh Gor said,
“We are delighted that
the Schools Adjudicator
has invited us to take forward our proposal. We
will now begin working
very hard to deliver a
school that offers academic excellence, an
open ethos and truly
serves the whole community.”
There are currently
only 30 places per year at
Hindu schools in the UK
serving a community of
one million, nevertheless
three-quarters of the
places will be open to
pupils of any faith and
none, with the other
quarter allocated on faith
criteria, reflecting the
representation of Hindus
in the local community.
This is because we are
determined to ensure

want my son Krish to
attend the Hindu
school. He will be
exposed to the welcoming Hindu ethos
and way of life, while
being encouraged to
play a full role in the
wider community. I
am sure the whole
Hindu
community
Kids at London's first Krishna will welcome this wonAvanti School in Harrow
derful news.”
Local Hindu resithat the intake is mixed
dent, scientific editor,
and reflects local demoand ex-Councillor Mrs
graphics.
Vinaya Sharma said, “I
Project
Director
am absolutely delighted
Sheila Dave said, “This is
that parents of the Hindu
an important day for the
and other communities
local community. We look
now have the choice of a
forward to working closevalue-added education
ly with other faith and
encouraging well-roundnon-faith schools to
ed citizens. The Hindu
ensure that our school is
community has an excelfully integrated within
lent track record of
the Redbridge family of
proactively working with
schools. We shall also
other faith and communiensure that the school is
ty groups, such as our
meeting the needs of the
celebrating raksha-bandlocal community. We
han with non-Hindu
already have parents
councillors, the Red
clamouring for places but
Cross and Police; but also
we will need to manage
reactively working with
expectations.”
the wider community in
Prospective parent,
times of need for example
local dentist and magisto oppose the closure of
trate Dr Atul Gandecha
the King George Hospital
J.P. said, “I am delighted
A&E.”
with the news because I

UK provide least academic hours as
compared to its European counterparts
Speaking at a Higher
Education Policy Institute
conference in central
London, Minister for
Universities and Science,
Rt Hon David Willetts
said that British universities are failing to provide
its students with enough
lecture and tutorial time.
He also stated that students in UK receive less
contact time with academics as compared to other
European countries, leaving university students
“frustrated”.
This revelation by
Universities Minister is
most likely to reignite the
debate over the tripling of
tuition fees from 2012 as
students may fail to get
the right value for the
large sum of money they
spend on university education.
According to a government research, British
universities provide an
average of 30 hours of
tutorials every week to

Rt Hon David Willetts

undergraduates as compared to 36 hours in
Germany and 42 hours in
France. This means that
in France, undergraduates
have eight to 12 more
classes every week as
compared to the UK, considering an average class
is for 60 to 90 minutes
each.
Mr Willetts said, "You

put together contact
hours and times of
private study, and you
do appear to find that
hours of study for students in the UK
appear to be below
the average as in
other European countries."
While universities
are set to charge up to
￡9,000 in tuition fees
from 2012 as compared to the current
cap of ￡3,290, evidence suggests that
British students still
are expected to put in
extra effort through
self study.
The issue of guaranteed contact hours is
expected to be addressed
in a higher education
White Paper due to be
published this summer.
The proposed legislation
will also outline further
detail
about
the
Government’s new fees
regime.

Red alert over Queen's security
Dublin was on high alert
ahead of the Queen's visit
after a bomb was discovered near the Irish capital
and a second suspect
package was found.
A 'viable improvised
explosive device' found in
the luggage compartment
of a bus in Maynooth, just
outside the city, was

blown up in a controlled
blast in the early hours of
this morning, an army
spokesman said.
After Ireland's biggestever security operation
was carried out, a second
package was found at a
tram station in Inchicore,
Dublin, which later turned
out to be a hoax.

12

MEDIA WATCH

Asian Voice - Saturday 21st May 2011

Scrutator’s
Those naïve enough to believe that the death of Osama bin
Laden in a fortified mansion Abbottabad, the Pakistan garrison
town some 80 miles from the capital Islamabad, would lead to
a fundamental rethink of US policy towards the country are in
for a shock. It is business as usual, with senior Democrat
Senator John Kerry in Pakistan on a damage-limitation exercise
to restore a frayed relationship. Pakistan has long been
Washington's key regional ally, from the cold war era to the
present day. It was, after all, from a US air base in Peshawar
that Gary Powers took off on his spying mission over Soviet air
space; it was a Pakistani military contingent that helped protect the Jordanian monarch (an American client) in the late
1960s from the threat posed by the militant Palestinian diaspora; and it is in Bahrain today that 3,500 Pakistan troops are
engaged in putting down a popular revolt against the USfavoured royal house.
The Financial Times (May 11) produced a substantial report
by Daniel Dombey and James Lamont with the following title,
“US defends support for Pakistan”. The opening lines presented the unvarnished truth: “The Obama administration has
made it clear it plans to keep providing billions of dollars of aid,
despite calls on Capitol Hill and elsewhere for Washington to
rein in such assistance. The killing of Osama bin Laden on
Pakistani territory has thrown a spotlight on the approximately $20 billion Washington has given Islamabad over the past
decade, with some legislators calling for assistance to the military to be halted, curtailed or given much greater scrutiny.....the administration depicts such aid as vital to relations
with Pakistan.....US officials emphasise that, despite the events
of the past few days, the administration has given no indication it is reviewing its policy.”

Challenging period
A senior administration official
explained: “This obviously is a
very challenging period but we
would like to be able to work
this through in a way that that
the
relationship
becomes
stronger again and we are not
going to prematurely curtail it.
We want this to be a positive
inducement for them to reflect
on what has just happened and
see if we can find ways to work
better together.”
The Obama administration
has made no bones that it will
use critical voices on Capitol
Hill and the media to pressure
Islamabad change old habits and
cease indulging terror groups in
Pakistan.
The Times of India's
Washington
Correspondentt
Chidanand Rajghatta (May 12)
also reported that the no-changers on the Obama administration's Pakistan policy had prevailed.

Words of wisdom
The Economist (May 7) weighed
in with words of warning to
Pakistan, something it rarely
does. The paper referred to its
penchant for using insurgents
on its territory in Kashmir
against India. “The links built
up between the ISI , the army
and the militants go deep. It
seems highly unlikely that the
Pakistani
terrorists
who
attacked Mumbai in November
2008, for example, did so without some official connivance.
....Denying in the Washington
Post this week any Pakistani
knowledge of Mr bin Laden's
whereabouts these past years,
Pakistan's President, Asif Ali
Zardari, resorted to a familiar
defence. Pakistan is 'perhaps the
world's greatest victim of terrorism.,' which has taken the lives
of 30,000 Pakistani civilians. Mr
Zardari is right: it is a policy of
lunatic recklessness. It assumes
America is too dependent on

Pakistan's help to ditch it again.
It assumes India will withstand
almost any provocation.....The
fear of its lurching into fundamentalist hands is in turn what
restrains America and India.....”
Pakistani-born
Michael
Nazir Ali, the former Anglican
bishop of Rochester, wrote an illinformed piece on Pakistan's
woes, ascribing them to a sense
of insecurity brought on by the
country's dispute with India
over Kashmir. He suggested
India be forced to negotiate the
issue, but who is to do the forcing? India is not a banana
republic, hence it does not take
orders from Washington or
London. Far from once being a
liberal polity, as the bishop
claimed, Pakistan was founded
on sectarian hatred. Mohammed
Ali Jinnah's Direct Action Day
call led to the holocaust of the
“Great Calcutta Killings” by his
Muslim League goons in August
1946. Jinnah's role in the Pathan
tribal invasion of Kashmir in
October 1947 was lucidly
explained by (Ms) Simran Kaur
on the letters page of The Times
(May 11). Pakistan today is
Jinnah's truest monument.

tional and transformational
effectiveness of the Ambalabased Kharga Corps and also
validate new concepts which
have remerged during the transformational studies undertaken
by the Army,” said an official.
The most significant aspect
of the exercise was to bring the
three strike corps - 1Corps
(Mathura), 2 Corps (Ambala) which are under separate regional commands – under a single
strategic command. Apart from
organisational changes to produce “an agile, lethal, versatile
and networked force” ready for
the operational challenges of the
21st century, the exercise was
also designed to train the force
in the use of the latest technological weapons systems to their
maximum potential.
Meanwhile, Josy Joseph,
reporting for The Times of India
(May 13), told how Indian intelligence agencies got wind of
Osama bin Laden's presence in
Pakistan way back in 2002.-03.
“In hindsight, I think we were
on a very credible trail, but we
didn't work on it,” said a senor
officiall, who claimed he was
aware of intercepts obtained by
Signal Intelligence, a tri-service
intelligence organisation known
for its technical capabilities.

PM in Kabul
Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh's two-day visit to Kabul
for talks with Afghanistan's
President Hamid Karzai was a
signal of Indian intent to remain
a force in the country. The West's
facilitation of Pakistan's primary role in Afghanistan is tantamount to Islamabad's effective
control of the place.
Dr Singh demanded a thorough investigation into how bin
Laden could live in Pakistan
without apparent detection for
so long during a joint press conference with Mr Karzai. He
appealed for joint action by
Afghanistan, Pakistan and India
for regional peace and stability
calling it a “unique moment” following bin Laden's death.
Asked whether India would
adopt the type of operation carried out by the US against bin
Laden, Dr Singh replied: “These
are sensitive issues and we don't
discuss strategies on terror at
press conferences.”
In his opening remarks, Dr
Singh pledged an Indian aid

Military exercise
A week-long inter-services military exercise - “Vijaya Bhava' –
involving the Indian Air Force
and Army took place in the
northern Rajasthan desert to
fine-tune the country's military
preparedness. An Army official
said it had conducted 10 major
exercises near the Pakistan border in the past six years. The
present exercise focused on battlefield tactics and refine India's
Cold Start doctrine and synergize the offensive power of its
air and ground forces. The
Indian Army had made 12 transformational changes to give its
offensive capability leaner and
meaner (Frontier India Online,
Times of India May 10).
“The manoeuvres are being
conducted to test the opera-

Chief minister Tarun Gogoi, who
won the Assam state election

Prime minister manmohan Singh with Afghan President Hamid karzai

package of $500 million to
Afghanistan in the next few
years. “This will consist of specific projects and schemes and
other initiatives that will be
developed in consultation with
the
Government
of
Afghanistan,” he said. India
would increase its focus on the
social sector, agriculture, capacity-building and access to the
Indian market, the Prime
Minister said. “Our development assistance to Afghanistan
stands at approximately $1.5 billion spread over several years,
but there are still gaps. We now
have a better understanding of
where we can and should do
more,” he said.
He added that India's strategic
partnership
with
Afghanistan would be implemented under the framework of
a Partnership Council, to be
headed by the two foreign ministers.

Spreading their wings
James Fontenella-Khan's report
in the FinancialTimes (May 4)
on Mukesh Ambani's entry into
India's financial services sector
via a joint venture with
D.E.Shaw, the US hedge fund,
was a possible signal of intent
that the boss of Reliance
Industries wanted to found a
bank. “The man likes to think
big when it comes to investing in
a new business,” said a person
close to him. Reaching for the
skies appears to be his motto.
Another FT report of the
same date by Peter Smith and
James Fontenella-Khan said:

mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool
Congress swept the polls in
West Bengal

See comment page 3

“India has underlined its desire
to play a bigger role in the development of Australia's coal sector
with the agreed acquisition of by
Adani Enterprises, the country's
largest coal importer, of
Queensland's Abbot Point Coal
Terminal for A$1,83 billion
(US2 billion).

Calling on old friends
Recent events have brought
home the importance of keeping
trusted friendships in good
working order. Two Indian warships visited Vietnam's Ho Chi
Minh City (formerly Saigon) following Indian Finance Minister
Pranab Mukherjee's talks in
Hanoi with the Vietnamese leadership (See Asian Voice, May
14, Media Watch, page 12). The
naval crew were warmly received
by the Vietnam authorities and
people.
The Hindu newspaper (May
6) reported the visit to Russia by
an Indian parliamentary delegation led by Minister of State for
Planning and Parliamentary
Affairs Ashwani Kumar, who
told reporters after meeting
Russian parliamentarians that
the Indo-Russian relationship
was “unique”. He said the purpose of the visit was to “reinforce and reiterate the special
relationship” in the face of new
global challenges.
Parliamentarians
from
Russia and India had agreed to
set up groups in their respective
legislatures closer bilateral ties
between the two countries, he
said.

Jayalalitha’s Aidmk won
resoundingly in Tamil Nadu

UK

Asian Voice - Saturday 21st May 2011

13

On the departure of Manubhai M Madhvani
Keith Vaz MP
Maunbhai Madvani was a giant. He was one of the
founder members of the Asian communtity in Britain. A
hugely successfull buisnessman who loved this country
and was also devoted to Africa and India. Above all he
was gentle and kind. He will be greatly missed.
Shailesh Vara MP
"My prayers and thoughts are with the Madhvani
family at this difficult time. Manubhai's loss will be felt
by many throughout the world. He was an extraordinary
man who touched the lives of so many people in a variety of ways. He will be greatly missed."
Kapil Dudakia
One can write a book on Shri Manubhai and his family, but suffice to say - today we all feel the loss that his
family must be feeling at this sad time. The Dudakia family salutes Shri Manubhai. A man of destiny who came
to us all, and left a lasting legacy that will inspire countless thousands in years to come.
GITA: 'Na jaayate' mriyate' vaa kadaachin naayam
bhuthva bhavithaa na bhooyah: ajo nithyah saasvato'yam puraano na hanyate' hanyamaane' sareere'

Lord Dolar Popat
Manubhai Madhvani was a determined, generous
and hard-working man. His resolve to rebuild his life in
Britain and to overcome his brutal imprisonment at the
hands of Idi Amin is testament to his character. He loved
his work and unwaveringly dismissed the notions of
retirement, yet for those of us who knew him it is his
generosity, his kindness and his humour that we will
remember him most for. Like many of you I am greatly
saddened at Manubhai’s passing; he was one in a million. For the generation of Ugandan Asians who were
forced to find a new home; Manubhai was an inspiration
and a shining light of success; without him today the
world feels a little darker. I am personally deeply grateful
to Manubhai for introducing the teachings and wisdom
of Morari Bapu into my life as well as thousands of others in the UK. It was at his invitation that Morari Bapu
first came to the UK in 1992. I am also indebted to
Manubhai for his encouragement in enabling me to pursue a career in politics. He will be greatly missed by all
of us in the UK as well as East Africa.

Inflation hits 4.5%
According to the official
figures, inflation has hit
4.5%, increasing the pressure for a UK bank rate
rise in 2011.
The City consensus
had been for the consumer
prices index (CPI) to have
registered a rise of 4.2%
for the year to April.
The cost of living was
forced higher, in part, by
Budget tax increases, such
as increased alcohol and
tobacco duty but also fastrising household gas
prices.
Hopes that price pressure might abate later in
the year, especially after

Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England forecasts a
further rise

the surprise drop to 4% in
March from 4.4% in
February, are now looking
less certain.

The Office of National
Statistics (ONS) said it
was the highest level registered since September

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2008, when inflation was
5.2%.
Market expectations
shifted marginally, bringing forward their forecast
of the first rise by one
month, from January 2012
to December 2011.
Mervyn
King,
Governor of the Bank of
England,
last
week
warned that CPI was on
its way to 5%, due to the
global rise in energy
prices.

BAE set to
pay £29.5m
to Tanzania
Britain's biggest defence
company, BAE Systems
has finally set up an internal panel that will allocate
the agreed £29.5m to
Tanzania in form of charity rather than paying it
out to its government.
The money is to be
paid in order to settle a
bribery and corruption
investigation
by
the
Serious Fraud Office
(SFO), in which the
investigators
dropped
their prosecution and
agreed a £30m settlement
with BAE for failure to
keep proper accounting
records over the sale of a
radar to Tanzania.
BAE had failed to
account properly for
$12m (£7.4m) of payments made to a former
marketing adviser. At the
same time, BAE also
admitted to "defrauding
the US" over the sale of
fighter planes to Saudi
Arabia
and
Eastern
Europe.

Families were £500
worse off than the
previous year
According to the latest
study by Institute of
Fiscal Studies, households have suffered the
most significant drop in
their income in 2010 since
1981. It also stated that
an average family is likely
to witness another three
percent drop in income in
2011 than the last year. It
has linked this reduction
in income to the stagnant
wage and a higher inflation.

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14

UK

India Connect
How do I apply for a
visa to India?
If you are planning a trip to
India, irrespective of the reason
of travel, you need to complete
an online application form, take
a print out and submit it at the
nearest India Visa Application
Center in the United Kingdom.
This Form is common for all
categories being applied for and
can be found on our website at
http://in.vfsglobal.co.uk along
Jiten Vyas, VF Global with all required information on
fees, documents required and
locations where the application can be submitted.
You also have the option to send us the application
form and all required documents via post to our visa application center in Hayes.
It is very important to keep in mind that the two photographs that you do need to submit along with your
application must be of a specific size i.e. 50x50 and with
a white background. The visa centers in London,
Birmingham and Edinburgh do have photo booths that
will be able to provide you with the right size and quality.
Please note that incorrect or incomplete applications,
documentation or photographs may not allow us to proceed with accepting your dossier at the visa center. A comprehensive FAQ tab on the homepage of our website will
provide you with more information on your application
requirements.
Where do I apply for a visa to India?
There are 8 locations within the United Kingdom where
you can submit your application for a visa to India. These
are:
India Visa Application Center
60-62 Wilton Road, Victoria, London, SW1V 1DE.
India Visa Application Center
142-148 Goswell Road, London EC1V 7DU.
India Visa Application Center
1-3, Canalside, Uxbridge Road,
Hayes, Middlesex, UB4 0JN
India Visa Application Center
20 - 21 Pemberton Street, Birmingham B18 6NY
India Visa Application Center
66 Hanover Buildings Rose Street,
Edinburgh EH2 2NN
Submission of Application for all the above centers: 0830
- 1430 Hrs
Collection of processed passports from all the above centers: 1300 - 1630 Hrs Monday-Friday
India Visa Application Center
C/o. The India Centre,
Sanquhar Street, Splott, Cardiff, CF24 2AA.
Working hours are from 09.00hrs until 14.30hrs Monday
to Friday
India Visa Application Center
C/o. Mel Milaap Centre
134 Berkeley Street, Glasgow, G3 7HY.
Working hours are from 0930 - 1430 Hrs
Monday-Friday
India Visa Application Center
C/o. Jain Community Centre
669 Stockport Road, Longsight, Manchester, M12 4QE.
Working hours are from 0930 – 1430 Hrs
Monday-Friday
What documents are required and the subsequent fees to
be charged?
Complete information on the documents required and the
subsequent fees which will be charged can be found under
the section ‘All About Your Visa’ on the homepage of our
website http://in.vfsglobal.co.uk. Under each category
information is broken down into four tabs at the top of the
page titled: Visa Fees, Document Checklist, Application
Form, Photo Specifications and FAQ.

India Connect - your questions answered
on India visas” a service offered by

Asian Voice - Saturday 21st May 2011

Lord Noon makes his
maiden speech
Lord Gulam Noon made his maiden
speech in the House of Lords on
Tuesday, 10 May. It was heard attentively by other peers and the points
highlighted by Lord Noon were
rightly acknowledged. In his speech,
Lord Noon said,
“My Lords, I am very honoured
to be making my maiden speech
today. I thank the noble Baroness,
Lady Newlove for introducing this
very important debate. Barones
Newlove’s contribution to this area
is significant and her maiden
speech greatly moved this House. I
am sorry that it was born out of
such a great personal tragedy.
May I also commend the noble
Baroness on her most excellent
report ‘Our vision for safe and
active communities’. I hope that I
can do justice to the wisdom of this
report as I talk to my Lords about
my experiences and understanding
about how we can make safer,
stronger and more active communities.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank my noble friend the
Baroness Jay of Paddington and my
noble friend Lord Sainsbury of
Turville for having introduced me to
the floor of the House in January
this year.
Since my arrival here I have
been most graciously and respectfully received by everyone. I have been
made to feel most welcome. I wish
to acknowledge and thank you my
Lords all the officials of the House
for their courtesy and their time.
It was only few years ago that I
was made to think that I might not
be here today to make this speech.
Of course, I am referring to the night
in November 2008 when I was
trapped in the Taj Hotel in Mumbai
while it was attacked by a group of
terrorists. So, I have had my own
close encounters with terrorists
which made me realize how quickly
life can be snuffed out by them.
Baroness Newlove suffered the ultimate tragedy. I was luckier.
On that November morning in
2008, I woke up in my hotel bed as
a businessman. By nightfall I was a
hostage of a terrorist cell. I had
taken a small Trade Delegation
from my parent company Kerry
Foods. The terrorists were hunting
down British and American nationals, which we all were.
We sat in the dark room listening to the sounds of grenades and
bombs exploding in the building.
Smoke soon poured in from under
our door and we panicked. Had I
known then what I was to learn
later, that the terrorists were in room
no.360, then, we would have really
panicked. For, you see, my Lords we
were in 361, right next door! It was
the longest night of my life.
Next morning, in the light of
dawn, we saw a fire brigade on the
street below. My suite was on the

people many benefits. Britain
provides its citizens great freedom to worship, to educate
and to work and, let’s not forget
our
compassionate
National Health Service.
There is also the benefit to
retire with a state pension.
The citizen is given all these
things by the nation. In return
we owe the community, society and the country our allegiance. We all have a moral
obligation to fulfil our duties
as citizens. We must live with
honour.
The freedoms we enjoy in
the UK, including the freedom
of religious belief and practice
are given freely. However,
with freedom comes responsibility. It is our responsibility
to be active, to take part and
do what we can to make all
our lives better.
It is
inevitable there will be friction at times, difficulties of
adjustments but we are all the
same under the skin.
On a personal level, I have
Lord Gulam Noon
worked hard to create an
3rd floor. We frantically waved to
industry and provide employment
the fire brigade. They sent their long
in Britain. At the same time, I have
ladder up to our balcony broke the
not forgotten that I am a member of
glass and hoisted us on to the plata greater society and have tried to
form. The TV images of our rescue
pay back through my Noon
went round the world as it was hapFoundation, a charity personally
pening. The handlers of the terrorendowed by me. Through our projists were also watching the TV and
ects I have come into contact with
directing their foot soldiers by
everyday heroes who work in hosmobile phones.
pices, community mentoring projAs we were coming down, they
ects, the brave soldiers of our army
shot at us from inside the hotel. We
and the many selfless people who
were lucky that we all escaped with
make life worthwhile.
our lives. But a hundred and sevIn our democracy we have the
enty six others who died in the
freedom to speak up, to comment
Mumbai attack were not so lucky.
and to criticize. There is room for
The terrorists attacked two hotels, a
every shade of expression. No matrailway station and a tourist café,
ter what our origins, our faith, our
as well as targeting a Jewish Centre.
culture and our opinions, we are
They were all ordinary people mindultimately stronger and safer in a
ing their own business. They were
community with each other. We are
killed randomly.
better off when we watch out for
These matters go to the very
each other.
heart of our debate today. If we are
I thank my Lords for listening to
to have safer communities we must
me and I look forward to taking part
deal with all of the forces that seek
in many more of our debates.”
to harm us and threaten the very
Significance of Lord Noon's
fabric of our society.
maiden speech was reflected when
Just a few days ago we got the
there was an uproar amongst the
news of the death of the terrorist
peer as they warmly greeted him.
mastermind who had dedicated his
Lord Bishop of Norwich in the follife to murder and mayhem. Let me
lowing speech said, “Lot of us have
say here what I believe Islam stands
taken advantage of the ready meals
for.
produced by Noon Products Ltd,
My beloved mother, Bilquis
instilled in me the Islamic values of
especially after late sittings.” He
peace and tolerance. I grew up in a
adds, “Lord Noon's contribution to
household in India where we were
enhance Jewish-Muslim relations
on very friendly terms with people
through Maimonides Foundation
of other faiths. Our neighbours
has been significant.”
were non Muslim. The community
Simultaneously, Lord Brooke of
was fully integrated and that
Sutton Mandeville and Lord Rosser
seemed to us the natural way to
also applauded the massive contrilive. It was a cosmopolitan society.
bution made by Lord Gulam Noon
London too is a cosmopolitan
in the entire spectrum of the British
city and this great country gives its
society.

Thieves raid O2 network
Phone network of millions of O2 customers across the
South East were cut off for almost 18 hours on Tuesday
after thieves raided a network building in East London.
The gang, described as “well organised” by O2,
struck just after midnight, shutting down phone, text
and broadband services in Kent and Sussex as well as
parts of North and East London.
The raid also affected Tesco Mobile and giffgaff customers, whose services are based on the O2 network.
On-call engineers who attended the unmanned
building called police and worked throughout the day

to restore the network, alongside forensics officers.
"This was a well organised theft which targeted this
operations site,” an O2 spokesman said.He added,
“once we discovered that there had been a theft, we
made the site secure and informed the police.”
The firm added that vandalism by the thieves made
repair work more difficult.
It follows a similar raid on a Vodafone building in
Basingtoke in February, which crippled services for
millions of its customers in the South.

UK

Asian Voice - Saturday 21st May 2011

15

Top chefs prepare botanical banquets as Patel jailed for five
and a half years
London sets eyes on Chelsea Flower Show
The capital is set to see the annual
spectacle of the RHS Chelsea Flower
Show from 24th to 28th May, presenting a real opportunity for some
of London’s best restaurants to
showcase the colour, splendour and
taste of the natural world. With
National Vegetarian Week, 23rd to
29th May, running concurrently with
the show, it is also a means for some
of London’s best chefs to demonstrate that the absence of meat is no
barrier to flavour.
The Chelsea Flower Show is held
each year for five days by Royal
Horticulture Society in the grounds
of the Royal Hospital Chelsea,
London. It is indeed the most
famous gardening event in the UK
and perhaps in the world. The fact
that the show is sold out before
weeks, reflects its popularity
amongst the Londoners.
Flower power at Pearl
Over at Pearl Restaurant on High
Holborn, contemporary French
cooking gets a floral makeover as
acclaimed chef Jun Tanaka has created a triumphant vegetarian tasting
menu that incorporates flowers and
blossom along with some quintessential English garden classics.
The Botanist in Bloom
Tom and Ed Martin’s flagship bar
and restaurant, The Botanist on
Sloane Square, will be in full bloom
with a range of floral-inspired cocktails. To accompany is a range of
complementary
quintessential
English dishes from the bar menu
including a British cheese board
selection served with chutney and
oatcakes.
Bursting
colours
at
the

Cinnamon Club and Cinnamon
Kitchen
The
Cinnamon
Club
in
Westminster and Cinnamon Kitchen
in the City are introducing two celebratory vegetarian menus, both
bursting with colour and making
innovative use of edible flowers, rose
petals, wild strawberries and many
more to add distinctive and unique
flavours. A deal with tickets of the
flower show is also available here.
East meets Veg at Ora
Ora, which opened near Oxford
Circus earlier this year, have created
a special vegetarian menu packed
with traditional Thai flavours.
Covent Garden's secret garden

Covent Garden’s hidden culinary
gem, French restaurant Clos
Maggiore, is offering a special sixcourse vegetarian tasting menu. Clos
Maggiore, which is one of London’s
best-kept secrets, combines the
finest in French cooking with one of
London’s biggest wine cellars and a
reputation as one of the capital’s
most romantic dining rooms.
A blooming great banquet at The
Landseer
The Landseer brings a bouquet
of flavours to Bloomsbury, with a
magnificent menu of floral inspired
dishes available to celebrate The
Chelsea Flower Show.

National Vegetarian Week
reignites diet debate
Albert Einstein once
said, “Nothing will benefit
human
health,
and
increase the chances for
survival of life on earth, as
much as the evolution to a
vegetarian diet”.
And with National
Vegetarian Week starting
from 23rd May, the debate
over the benefits of maintaining a vegetarian diet
has been reignited by
many pro-vegetarian and
pro-environment organisations around the world.
A research done by
International Corporate
Vegetarian Association
(ICVA) states the following benefits that vegetarians avail.
l 20% lower rate of mor-

tality from all causes ie.
they live longer
l 40% reduced level of
cancer
l 24% reduced risk of getting heart disease while it
remains the biggest killer
in the UK accounting for
50% of deaths
l two and a half times
less likely to get bowel
cancer
l The World Health
Organisation recommends
a diet low in saturated fat,
sugar, salt & with plenty
of fibre - vegetarian diets
are favourable to this
l Many life insurers offer
discount life cover for vegetarians because medical
evidence suggested that
they are less likely to suf-

fer from major illnesses
People's
vegetarian
diet also benefits the environment because scientifically eating lower in the
food chain means lower
CO2 emission. If a nonvegetarian person swaps
to vegetarian diet, he
would individually reduce
CO2 emission by 442 kg
per year. About 5000 gallons of water is consumed
to raise one pound of beef.
Moreover, the UN Food
and
Agriculture
Organisation estimates
that animal raising r consumption is responsible
for 18 percent of global
warming and 80 percent
of anthropogenic land
use.

Daughter inspired by mother's
presidential role
Law Society president
Linda Lee became the
first female president to
admit her daughter to the
roll of solicitors at an
admissions ceremony at
Chancery Lane. Gabrielle
Maria Lee, who studied
at the University of
Sheffield and University
of London, was a trainee
at legal aid firm Joe Egan
Solicitors in Bolton.
Speaking before the
ceremony, Gabrielle said,
“Throughout my mother's

training, I saw all the
work she put in to
becoming a solicitor. I’ve
always been very interested in law, and this interest was definitely sparked
through seeing my mum
work and hearing her talk
about it.” About the field
she has chosen, she adds,
“I’m very grateful to be
given the opportunity to
work as a solicitor. Legal
aid is a very important
area of law as you are
helping the people who

are in most need of representation.”
Linda Lee said, "I see
so many proud parents,
family members and
friends at each and every
admissions ceremony at
the Law Society and
today I am definitely a
proud mother. I am
delighted Gabrielle has
chosen to work in the
legal aid sector and I
hope she finds it as
rewarding as I have
done."

Jyoti Patel, 53, a bank
cashier was declared
guilty at Wood Green
Crown Court and jailed
for five-and-a-half years
for
stealing
almost
£300,000
from
the
accounts of a vulnerable
pensioner who was suffering from Parkinson's and
partial blindness.
Mrs
Patel,
from
Kenton, blew £15,000 of
Peter Lewis’ savings on
fees for her daughter’s private school and another
£62,000 on her son’s
house deposit. Patel, who
worked at Barclays in
Kingsbury Road, produced documents that
granted her the power of
attorney before transferring his life savings to her
and changing his will to
leave all his assets to her
husband and son.
She also changed his
account details so that
bank statements were sent
to her personally.
Mr Lewis, who lived in
Harrow, was unable to
care for himself due to
partial blindness and the
degenerative brain disorder Parkinson’s disease.
He died aged 85 in
September 2009.
However, the scam
was uncovered after Mr
Lewis’ solicitor became
suspicious that he was not
receiving bank statements.

Jyoti Patel

During her trial, Patel
claimed she had ‘good
friends’ with Mr Lewis
and that he had asked her
to take charge of his
affairs and act as his carer.
But before he died Mr
Lewis told police he had
never met her.
The bank has since
refunded the cash in full
and police are expected to
apply for an order to confiscate Patels’ ill-gotten
gains.
Patel was found guilty
on eight charges including
theft, transferring of criminal property and forgery.
Detective
Constable
Darren Norton said, “This
is a particularly distressing case as Jyoti Patel targeted an elderly man suffering from Parkinson’s
Disease who could not see
or hear properly. I am
pleased that justice has
finally been served, and I
just wish he had lived long
enough to witness it himself.”

16

BOLLyWOOD

Asian Voice Saturday 21st May 2011

Cannes attracts many Bollywood glitterati

Asian Voice - Saturday 21st May 2011

17

Don't link me with Saif: Priyanka Chopra
Bollywood star Chopra has denied reports that she
has become "over-friendly" with actor Saif Ali Khan of
late. Recent reports claimed that the 'Saat Khoon
Maaf' star hit it off with Khan during a visit to the sets
of his next movie 'Agent Vinod' and the new bonhomie has angered his girlfriend Kareena Kapoor. "It
was a casual meeting, nothing else. Now please don't
link me up with him at least," Chopra told reporters.
Asked if Kareena has any problems with it, she retorted, "No one has any problem with it." The former Miss
World is very excited about her two upcoming films,
'Don 2' and 'Agneepath' which will see her alongside
her favorites, Shah Rukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan.

Wedding bells for
actress Aparna

Amitabh, Aamir films to clash

Aparna, who acted in films
like ‘Pudukotailirundhu
Saravanan’ pairing opposite Dhanush and in
‘ABCD,’ a mulitstarrer
which also had Sneha and
Shaam in the lead roles is
getting married on June
29th. She will marry
Bharani, a doctor and a

specialist in bone surgery.
The wedding will be held
at Srivari Wedding Hall,
Vanagaram. Mr. Bharani is
the son of Mr. Kannappan,
the owner of Sundar
Theatre
located
in
Poonamallee. The engagement ceremony will be
held on June 8th.

Now Shilpa’s yoga
DVD in Tamil

After the success of
Shilpa Shetty's yoga DVD
in Hindi, English and
Malayalam, it will now be
released in Tamil. She
wanted the DVDs to reach
out to the masses so that
people can actually understand the value of yoga in
their life and lead a healthier life. Fitness freak
Shilpa had taken intensive

training from yoga trainers
Shiv Kumar Mishra and
Vinayak Dixit. "Yoga is a
management system for
our body, mind and soul. It
is the most holistic
approach to life that I have
ever come across. It
strengthens, tones and
cures your body. Yoga has
had a spectacular impact
on my life," she said.

Rajinikanth
hospitalized again

The 64th Cannes Film Festival that opened last week with Woody Allen's
'Midnight in Paris' was graced by many Bollywood glitterati. Aishwarya,
whose continued presence at festivals has established the global spotlight on
Bollywood, has joined by Sonam Kapoor and Freida Pinto as they walk the
Red Carpet for L'Oreal Paris. L'Oreal, for the first time, have three
spokespersons representing India at Cannes. Minissha Lamba will also be
present this year at the gala. Pinto will attend the amfAR - American
Foundation for AIDS Research dinner and after-party on May 19. Karan
Johar, designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee and Saif Ali Khan are attending as
guests of Chivas Regal. Director Shekhar Kapoor will showcase a
documentary where he along with Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra and
American director Jeff Zimbalist will paint a poignant and swirling
montage of Bollywood, which has in recent times become

Mallika Sherawat
turns down Barack
Obama’s invitation!

Actor Rajinikath is back in
hospital for pneumonia,
renal and gastro-intestinal
problems. Doctors at Sri
Ramachandra
Medical
Centre, Porur in Chennai,
where the 61-year-old film
icon was admitted on
Saturday, said he was
being treated for recurrent
respiratory infection and a
stomach ailment. His
stressful schedules coupled with lifestyle habits,

including smoking, could
have worsened his health
condition. Rajinikanth,
who had returned home
after two rounds of hospitalization, was rushed
back to hospital on
Saturday when his respiratory problems worsened.
A series of investigations
including a CT scan was
done by a team of doctors,
who concluded that he
suffered from pneumonia.

Nana Patekar to don
director’s hat again
After a span of almost two
decades, veteran Nana
Patekar will be soon donning the director's hat
again for his second film,
an unconventional love
story where a 50-year-old
man would romance a
woman half his age.
"I have written a script.
I may direct it any
moment. I don't know
exactly when. I don't think
its an issue-based film. In
my film, the actress would
be of 24-25 years of age
and the actor would be
almost of 50," Nana said.
The senior Bollywood
actor said the movie will
be a simple love story,
probably on the lines of
Hollywood
filmmaker
David
Lean's
Ryan's
Daughter or anything of
the Roman Holiday sort.
But it would not be
inspired or adapted from

Mallika Sherawat who was present at two events in
White House with US president Barack Obama, has
turned down another invitation from the president. She
missed out on making strike three with an exclusive
poetry reading session at the Presidential residence in
Washington. Reason? She will host a party to promote
her film at Cannes on the same date. And so, despite
her professed love for poetry (the actress admits to
being familiar with the verse of 13th century poet Amir
Khusro, 19th century poet Mirza Ghalib and America's
TS Eliot), work won this round. A source close to the
“Hisss actress insists that for Madame M, her "professional commitments come first".
Hosting a sunset cocktail party for her Hollywood
release, “Politics of Love on Nikki Beach in Cannes was
something she had committed to, months before. So it
was out with Obama and in with the French Riviera for
the actress. She flew to the famed French town later.
She notes, "It's always a pleasure to meet the most
powerful man in the world and it's very special that I
was invited amongst the 100 invitees. But since the
Cannes commitment was a prior one and the White
House invite only came recently, I had to regretfully
decline. I sent my apologies. I am looking forward to
more invitations from him in the future."

Tusshar inspires Amrita
Tusshar Kapoor will be seen sharing screen space with Amrita Rao
in the upcoming film
“Love
U…Mr
Kalakaar!” Amrita
who is a very professional
actress says
that she is motivated working with
Tushar as he is
methodical,
meticulous
and a detail
oriented person. “Working
with such an actor
keeps you on your
toes all the time
because someone
who is a perfectionist can only make
you want to do
better.”

synonymous with Indian cinema.
As far as fashionista are concerned,
best is Sonam Kapoor who was dolled up in Jean
Paul Gaultier couture, Chopard earrings, Amrapali ring and
Ferragamo shoes on the red carpet. Looking pretty in a geometrical
patterned white dress, the actress was surely a paparazzis' dream come true.
It was thumbs up from designers for Aishwarya Rai who walked the red carpet in a
beige one-shoulder Elie Sahab outfit on the opening day, the actress completed her
look with her hair tied up, simple earrings and Jimmy Choo clutch bag in her hand.
Apart from Aishwarya and Sonam, actresses like Minissha and Mallika Sherawat,
Frieda Pinto, and actor Saif Ali Khan will be walking the red carpet at various events.
The festival will end on May 22.

Anushka to don bikini in her next
Model turned actress
Anushka
Sharma,
who is best known for
her performance in
“Band
Baaja
Baaraatis” is all set to
flaunt a bikini in her
next film, The actress
will be seen in a two
piece in “Ladies vs
Ricky Bahl' co-starring 'good friend'
Ranveer Singh. This is
the first time that
Anushka will don a
bikini and so preparations are going on in
full swing. Buzz also
has it that Yash Raj
Films, the producer of
the film, has already
told her to tone up to
get the perfect bikini.

them, he clarified.
Ryan's Daughter is a
1970 film directed by
David Lean. The film, set
in 1916, tells the story of a
married Irish woman who
has an affair with a British
officer during World War I,
despite opposition from
her nationalist neighbours.
Nana said, "I would be
acting in the film. If I get a
'buddha khushad' person
like him (for the 50-yearold
character)
then
good...or else I will only
act. About the actress it’s
not decided.. lets see who
wants to work with me. I
may start the film this year
or hopefully next year."
On whether he will follow the recent trend of
item songs in his directorial venture, he said, "I may
have item songs..I don't
know...”

Upset Kangna Ranaut blocks shooting
Bollywood actress Kangna Ranaut
recently locked inside her vanity
van and refused to come out and
shoot with Sanjay Dutt. Her tempers were flying high on the sets of
Inder Kumar's “Double Dhamaal”
following reports insinuating that
she was trying to get back into
Sanjay Dutt's clan. According to
sources, she was blaming the unit
members of the film for spreading
false stories about her. The cast
was shooting at Mehboob Studios
when the incident happened. It
took over two hours to pacify
Kangna. "She thinks someone
from the unit was talking ill of her.
She's maintaining distance from
Sanju and trying not to entertain
any loose talk.”

Amitabh Bachchan's home production “BbuddahHoga Terra Baap” and Aamir Khan’s “Dekhi Belly” are
set to hit the screens on the same day – July 1.
Bbuddah is about an old man who feels young, and
will see Amitabh, 68, riding a Harley Davidson, while
Delhi Belly is about three friends living together in a
bachelor pad in Delhi. More than being nervous about
the clash, Amitabh is excited that Bbuddah... is releasing before his other film “Aarakshan.” "It now seems
probable that Bbuddah even though started its shot
after the shoot for Aarakshan was over, has finished
first. And.now it is set to be released before Aarakshan
too. Bbuddah on July 1st," Amitabh posted on his blog.

Siddharth, Shruti Haasan living together
Siddharth and Shruti Hassan's love is
slowly budding towards a serious relationship. They have taken their relation to the next level as they are
rumoured to be living together. A
Source said, Siddharth and Shruti have
sought blessings of Kamal Hassan,
Shruti's dad, and have started living
together. Moreover, Papa Hassan is a
happy man with his daughter Shruti
having chosen a right man, according
to him. Both the lovebirds are to be
truly, madly and deeply in love.

18

Asian Voice - Saturday 21st May 2011

TCS ranked among UK's top five employers
Dear Financial Voice Reader,
My God is nothing sacred? Another week, another
scandal. I sometimes wonder if there are more crooks in
finance than in prison. It makes you feel sorry for the little guy shoplifter who gets caught and the financial thief
who takes a few million and walk free.
Rajaratnam, Strauss-Kahn, Gupta – the last two not
convicted but accused. And as if financial crimes were
not enough – in the case of the Head of the IMF it is
sexual crimes he is accused of. You used to call these
money people ‘Masters of the Universe’ but it seems
they really believe that of themselves. Like Emperors
and demi-gods, they take as they see fit. But this is not
new. The concept of the Superman is well trodden in
philosophy, the person who considers himself bound by
a higher law because of his breeding. The Nazis swore
by it.
As the web states, ‘ancient Greece, hubris (ancient
Greek) referred to actions that shamed and humiliated
the victim for the pleasure or gratification of the abuser.
The term had a strong sexual connotation, and the
shame reflected on the perpetrator as well. It was most
evident in the public and private actions of the powerful
and rich. The word was also used to describe actions of
those who challenged the gods or their laws.
In ancient Greece Hubris was a legal term and
meant a crime – the crimes included rape and theft.
Ironically, it is then Hubris with which Rajaratnam (insider dealing) and Strauss-Kahn (rape) and Gupta (insider
dealing) are accused. But Hubris also in the moral sense
– behaviour over confident in one’s own beliefs – no
regard for society.
Rajat Gupta, former head of McKinsey, was revered
within an entrepreneur network I am part of, TiE, by the
fellow Charter Members who knew him. I was too lowly
to ever meet the great man. The others would fawn
around him, elevating and feeding his god-like status.
Perhaps they should have spent more time with the
waiters serving the drinks – for apparently that is an
antidote for hubris – talking to regular, normal people.
So I say to all of you who read this column because
you are in finance. As Bloomberg puts it, ‘During the
past decade, Gupta, who was already a millionaire,
began to veer off track. He spent more time with Wall
Street money managers. He told colleagues that he
wanted to be a dealmaker, not just a consultant.’ Well Mr
Gupta, I am a Dealmaker (officially designated) for the
UK Government, and yes it is a heady mix of power and
glamour and influence. But let me give you some advice,
and all those who read this column to move up in
finance:
First, no amount of charity work will excuse moral
corruption. Second, temptation is an evil seductress.
Black and white rules are best. If you’re unsure, get it
authorised by a higher authority. And there is always a
higher authority. I have two priests on speed dial! Third,
try to speak to one Big Issue vendor a week. Fourth,
look at pictures of your grandmothers. Their hard work
does not legitimise bad conduct, it prohibits it. Finally,
remember the phrase, ‘fear of god.’
All of the above will cure hubris. So again, I ask, my
god, is nothing sacred? You can tweet me your thoughts
on @alpeshbp.
My blog is at www.alpeshblog.com and
www.alpesh.tv you can see my latest TV commentary.
Alpesh.patel@tradermind.com

Wipro buys Brazilian hydraulic cylinder co
Wipro is acquiring a Brazilian hydraulic cylinder manufacturer, RKM Equipamentos Hidraulicos. Wipro's cylinder division started in 1976 and has grown into a global
business with a revenue of about $300 million (Rs 1,350
crore). The company, known primarily for its IT business,
is amongst the world's biggest manufacturers of hydraulic
cylinders, a component of excavators, loaders, dozers,
dumpers, motor graders and farm equipment.

#
"
#

$
!

#
#

!

The study recognised
that the company has outstanding policies, a "make
it happen" culture, is dedicated to the long-term
development of its staff in
Britain and offers excellent working conditions.
Reshuffle in top
management
TCS has, meanwhile,
has reshuffled the top
management deck of its
UK arm Diligenta, as it
seeks to grow the BPO
business. It has named
Phiroz Vandrevala, execu-

tive director of TCS, as the
managing director and
vice
chairman
of
Diligenta. Vandrevala, 53,
was the chairman of the
six-year-old unit that started operations by acquiring
the life and pension businesses of the Pearl Group.
According to the Tata
Group policy, a person
cannot hold the chairman
and managing director's
post and so TCS's MD N
Chandrasekaran will now
don the chairman's role at
Diligenta.

ArcelorMittal posts $1,069 mn net
income for first quarter of 2011

Mittal anxious
to start work on
India projects

India's largest software
company
Tata
Consultancy
Services
(TCS) said that it has been
ranked among Britain's
top five employers by the
CRF institute.
The CRF Institute
identifies the front runners
in
excellent
human
resource (HR) management, leadership and strategy, using international
standards.
"The
certification
based on independent
research done by the insti-

Steel major Arcelor Mittal
posted a net income of
$1,069 million for the first
quarter of 2011, against a
$780 million net loss in
the previous quarter, driven by an increase in both
shipments and selling
prices.
For the quarter ended
March 31, 2010, the company had a net income of
$640 million.
Sales of the company
for the quarter ended
March 31, 2011, rose to
$22,184 million from
$17,428 million in the corresponding quarter a year
ago.
Commenting on the
results,
ArcelorMittal
chairman
and
CEO
Lakshmi N Mittal said,
"As anticipated, we have
seen a stronger start to the

India’s exports
rise 34% in
April to $24 bn

The government of India
has warned of tough
months ahead, though the
exports in the new financial
grew 34.4 per cent in April
to $ 23.9 billion. What may
be another worrying signal
is a 14.1% rise in imports to
$32.8 billion although
prices of several commodities led by oil, metals and
bullion have shot up in
recent months. This left
India with a trade deficit of
$8.9 billion in April.
For the last few
months, exports have been
growing at a scorching
pace and helped push
India's export during
2010-11 to a record $246
billion with a growth rate
of 37.55%, another record.
The momentum seems
to have continued into the
new financial year as engineering goods remained
the star performer. The
segment clocked a growth
of 109% and shipments
during April were estimated to have touched $6.8
billion. Export of petroleum products grew 53% to
$4.3 billion and gems and
jewellery exports rose 39%
to $2.9 billion. Readymade
garments clocked a 12.7%
growth. On the flip side, a
few sectors such as iron
ore and marine products
showed a decline.

tute and audited by Grant
Thornton demonstrated
that
TCS
performed
extremely well across all
11 key areas of HR practice," the company said in
a regulatory filing.

year, with an increase in
both shipments and selling
prices. This is expected to
further improve in the second quarter as the underlying demand recovery
continues."
For the first quarter of
2011, the company reported a 4% rise in steel shipments to 22 million tonnes
and a 7% jump in the average steel selling price as
compared to the fourth

quarter
of
2010,
ArcelorMittal said in a
statement.
Going forward, the
company has a bullish outlook and said steel shipments are expected to
increase further in the second quarter in line with
higher capacity utilisation
due to continued improvement
in
underlying
demand and seasonal factors.
Besides, increases in
average steel selling prices
are expected to more than
offset cost increases in the
second quarter, while mining production and profitability are also expected
to improve, ArcelorMittal
said, adding that second
quarter EBITDA is expected to be between $3.0-3.5
billion.

FDI limit in defence
production likely to go up

More liberation is coming
in the foreign direct investment (FDI) regime in
India soon. The government is set to revive discussions on increasing the
FDI limit in defence production from 26% to 49%.
And this time, the proposal - which was on the
backburner for nearly a
year in the face of intense
opposition
from
the
defence ministry - seems
to be getting some support
from South Block.
Last week, the Union
Cabinet permitted FDI in
limited liability partnership
firms, which is a hybrid
structure between a partnership firm and a company. The proposal on FDI in
defence, if approved, would
only leave the government
with allowing foreign
investment in multi-brand
retail, something that is
being keenly watched by
international chains like
Wal-Mart and Carrefour.

Sources said a fresh
note on defence production is expected to be
taken up for discussion by
a ministerial panel headed
by finance minister Pranab
Mukherjee.
Defence minister A K
Antony, who had put his
foot down on the proposal
floated by the department
of industrial policy and promotion for hiking the ceiling to 74%, is expected to
back a move to increase the
cap to 49%, something
which is seen as finding
middle ground. Antony had
earlier argued that 26% was
"enough at the moment".
Senior members of the
Cabinet are supporting the
proposal to raise the FDI
ceiling for defence. Among
the arguments in favour of
hiking FDI is that the 26%
limit has not enthused foreign investors, who have
only put in around $30 million in the defence sector in
all these years.

ArcelorMittal pins hopes
to start work on its bigticket India projects but
exuded confidence that
the government is doing
its best to ensure its Rs 1,
billion projects take off.
"It is very important to
us and we are as anxious
as anyone to make substantial progress in India,"
ArcelorMittal Chief L N
Mittal said
after the
world's largest steel producer declared its first
quarter results. Mittal said
though there was some
progress in its Karnataka
and Jharkhand projects
but this was not enough to
begin construction of steel
mills.
"There
is
some
progress in Karnataka .We
have started seeing some
progress in Jharkhand. So,
there is some progress but
not enough yet to start
construction on any particular date when they will
begin the project work,"
Mittal said.
The company had
entered into a pact with
Jharkhand
government
way back in 2005 to set up
a 12 million tonnes per
annum (MTPA) steel
plant. It had unveiled similar plans for Orissa in
2006.
However, none of the
projects could take off due
to regulatory and other
hurdles like problems in
land acquisition, raw
material security etc. It
had to shift the site of the
proposed
project
at
Bokaro in Jharkhand from
Khunti-Gumla, faced with
land acquisition problems.
Faced with delays, it
entered into a pact with
Karnataka government for
Rs. 300 billion plant with a
capacity of 6 MTPA in
June 2010.
However, the company
is still in need of regulatory approvals to take off
projects.
"We are still in need of
so many approvals," Mittal
said. Asked whether he
intended to take up the
matter
with
Prime
Minister
Manmohan
Singh, he said the government was aware of the
entire issue and he was
hopeful that it (government) was making efforts
to ensure progress.

This week we are looking at a property which may have gone for auction by the time you read this article, or maybe you will have just
enough time to boldly rush to the auction house and place a bid. The
property in question is a two bedroom property in Wembley. The property according to the guide price is a very good purchase, of course in
an auction environment it only takes two people to drive the price up.
Normally the guide price is set below the reserve and it is typically 10%
below what the auctioneer expects the property to go for.
This property comes with a long lease of 120 years low service
charge and full legal information to look at . It requires refurbishment
to bring it to a rentable condition. According to the local estate agents
and land registry figures, the flat in a good condition would be worth
around £190,000.
Below we have given the scenario at various sale prices
Cash flo w st ate me nts based on various purchase prices

ated only 11 minutes from Baker St., and Wembley Stadium only 10
mins from Marylebone by train. Wembley has had over £1.5Bn
spent to date with more plans in the pipeline.
With the Supermarket giant ASDA only down the road, this area
even without any potential regeneration already has good rental
fundamentals. The most important being the proximity of a station
to the flat we have.
So imagine how regeneration plans and new initiatives will
boost the market. The Asian population has always served to maintain property prices within the area.
Rental yields in Wembley are still sufficient to maintain the
mortgage payments and provide an income. Currently we have a
stunning product which has just been released this week, it’s a two
year fixed BTL rate at 4.69% with 0.5% arrangement fee. This
would wrap around this investment very well.
Development in Wembley can in a way be likened to the West
End. Wembley Park Station is equipped to cope with 37,000 passengers passing through per hour, as is currently Oxford Circus in
Central London.
The 58.5 acres of site being developed is equal to an area
stretching from Trafalgar Square to Soho Square north-south, and
from Covent Garden to Leicester Square east-west. The LDA
(London Development Agency) has also spent £20 million on a
new square the size of Leicester Square.
The new project will include a new park, hotel and affordable
workspace in the latest stage of the Wembley City regeneration,
covering a 14-acre swathe of north London being developed by
Quintain Estates & Developement.
A blueprint will be followed by a planning application later this
year. Quintain say its “new neighbourhood”, will come with a shopping street and student digs.
More than 520 homes have already been completed at Wembley
City, and by 2013 a Hilton hotel, cinema and designer shopping
centre will be up and running. It is believed that future homes will
be released in 2014.
Sow & Reap have another investment flat going in the Kings
Drive development, in Wembley. It is priced at £185,000 and comes
with a tenant in place paying £950pm. Please get in touch if you
would like more information.

Tips of the Week
l Prior to going to Auction get a solicitor to
check the legal pack
l Always get a decision in principle at least
before going to auction

Westbourne House, 14-16 Westbourne Grove, London, W2 5RH

l Try and find out why the property is on
auction, it may be because it's not
sellable ordinarily

20

financial voice

Asian Voice - Saturday 21st May 2011

Amit Patel has over 15 years experience in the field of
Leadership and Human Resource Management

Maria Fernandes

maria@abplgroup.com

An attack on families:
restricting rights of appeal
The Prime Minister, supported by comments from
the Home Secretary
Theresa May last week
announced that appeals
for visitors for families
are next on target for
restriction change on the
basis that around two
thirds of those granted
visas do not return at the
end of the visit. The article I read also suggested
that
visitors
were
migrants. These statements are extraordinary.
Families, which are
defined, get a right of
appeal if they are refused
entry. Asian families do
not (yet) regard the
nuclear family as their
only family. Cousins are
known as brothers for
one reason alone, that
they are regarded as close
family members. When
refused entry, families are
prepared to take steps
(often at great cost and
inconvenience) to challenge decisions.
The removal of rights
of appeal to these categories sends a strong

IHQ status
for Tata
Communications
in Singapore
The Singapore government has awarded the status of “International
Headquarters” to Tata
Communications following the commitment of a
fresh investment of 440
million Singapore dollars
over the next four years in
the country.
“The official accreditation of international headquarter status by the
Singapore government has
come on the back of our
long-term
commitment
and continued investment
in the region,” Tata
Communications MD and
CEO Vinod Kumar said.
The incentive-based
IHQ status, awarded by
Singapore’s state investment agency Economic
Development
Board,
would also see Tata
Communication increasing its Singapore workforce by 60 per cent to 200
over the next four years.
“One of the many benefits of placing our international headquarters in
Singapore is the access to
its world-class technical and
business expertise,” Mr.
Kumar said. “We want to
play a continued role in
encouraging local innovation by employing the best
local talent available, at all
levels of the business,” Mr.
Kumar said, referring to
developing Singapore-based
resources and manpower.

message, like all the other
messages that have been
coming across for the
past year, that the days of
celebrating the differences of the minority
ethnic communities are
numbered. There is no
right to respect for the
differences in the cultures. Communities must
shed their identity and
subsume it with the cultural norms of the indigenous community.
What concerns me is
the reasons used to justify
this course of action. There
is no mass scale of visitors.
In fact in all the years I
have been practising immigration this has never been
a
concern
of
any
Government. So this has
left me wondering what
the Government are up to.
Well the first thing to
remember is that 90% of
such
appeals
from
Pakistan succeed, that a
vast majority (I do not
have the exact percentages as I write this) succeed where the applicants
are from India. This is a

great
inconvenience
undoubtedly
to
the
authorities and it questions their decision making qualities.
The
Independent
Monitor in one of his
reports has castigated the
UKBA for blatant discrimination in dealing with different nationalities.
Until now the refusals
can be challenged in a
Tribunal for the whole
world to see and the statistics speak for themselves. Ending a right of
appeal for this category of
people when there are
real
concerns
about
whether the system is fit
for purpose seems to me
to be sweeping the problem under the carpet.
Maria Fernandes has
been in practice exclusively in immigration for
the past 25 years.
Fernandes Vaz is based at
87 Wembley Hill Road
Wembley in Wembley and
can be contacted by telephone on 02087330123,
by email on info@fernandesvaz.com

JLR raises over Rs
73bn to refinance debt

Tata Motors last week said
its UK-based subsidiary
Jaguar Land Rover has
completed raising of 1 billion (over Rs 73 billion) to
refinance its existing debt
and other purposes.
"This is a milestone in
significantly strengthening the capital structure of
Jaguar Land Rover and we
are very pleased with the
outcome," Tata Motors
chief financial officer C
Ramakrishnan said in a
filing to the Bombay Stock
Exchange.
Recently, the company
had announced its plans
to raise the amount
through issue of sterling
and US dollar denominated senior notes, which are
debt instruments that
takes priority over other
unsecured or otherwise
more "junior" debt owed
by the issuer.
"Jaguar Land Rover
PLC, the parent company
of Jaguar Cars and Land

Rover, itself wholly owned
by Tata Motors, is pleased
to announce the pricing of
1,000 million equivalent
senior notes following a
significant over-subscription by investors," the
company said. JLR has
issued 500 million worth
senior notes due 2018, at
an interest of 8.125% per
annum. It has also issued
two sets of $410 million
senior notes each, with
one set due in 2018 at
7.75% per annum while
the other set is due in
2021 at an interest of
8.125% a year. "The proceeds from the issuance
and the sale of the notes
will be used to refinance
existing debt and for general corporate purposes,"
the filing said.
The British firm's total
debt as on December 31,
2010, stands at 2.65 billion, while parent Tata
Motors' gross debt stood
at about Rs 340 billion.

The Age of Brooklands
Last weekend I took my
sons to see Concorde (the
plane which has inspired
him to want to be a pilot)
at
the
Brooklands
Museum in Weybridge
(www.brooklandsmuseum.com). It was a great
experience and my sons
loved it - they bought a
ticket, boarded the aircraft and even sat in the
seats as the pilot (a video
recording)
took
us
through takeoff until we
reached the optimum
speed of Mach 2. When
we got home he said to
me, ‘Daddy, I’m sad’. I
asked him why he was
sad on a day when he got
to see his favourite aircraft. He replied, ‘I’m sad
because they don’t fly
Concorde anymore.’ I
was taken aback. Not
least because a four year
old child had so poignantly summarised the state
of British invention.
The museum is wonderful, set in the grounds
of Brooklands – a once
famous racing track
whose name has been
somewhat forgotten over
time, it has captured

some of the finest inventions created by British
pioneers and provides a
stark reminder of the
days when Britain was at
the forefront of invention
and innovation. There are
exhibits of the work of
pioneers such as Malcolm
Campbell and Barnes
Wallis – ever heard of
them? Yet the fact that
these exhibits are situated in some dilapidated
buildings in the middle of
the Kent countryside are
an indictment of sorts,
that the country and its
leaders have shifted their
focus to other things.
Why is it that today
people talk about the
engineering
of
the
Germans, the efficiency
of the Japanese and the
industry of the Chinese?
What has happened to
the pioneering genius of
the
British?
David
Cameron alluded to this
in his big society speech
but the fact remains that
somewhere along the line
Britain has fallen back
from the cutting edge of
technological innovation
and invention. Concorde

By Amit Patel

is actually the perfect
example. First conceptualised in the 1950’s – first
flown in the 1960’s and
retired in 2003; to this
day it still ignites the
imagination and inspires
a feeling of awe. This
gives rise to the question
of why have there been so
few inventions of similar
ingenuity and beauty
since Concorde’s first
flight.
During these 50 years
time other countries have
got ahead not because
they are better, but
because they work harder
– they only wanted to
emulate the British. Their
leaders challenged people
to work and to create.
While our leaders allowed
this country to become
something which it could
never afford to be – ‘comfortable’. Now theirs’ is
the task to inspire this
nation to rise again and
restore the glory of the
‘age of Brooklands’.
‘Footprints in the sands
of time are not made by
sitting down’.

Rajaratnam found guilty of insider trading
Sri Lankan - American
hedge fund tycoon Raja
Rajaratnam has been
found guilty of making
tens of millions of dollars
from insider trading with
tips from corporate spies,
including two Indian
Americans.
Rajaratnam, who was
convicted on all 14 counts
by a federal grand jury last
week, could face as much
as 19-and-a-half-years in
prison under federal sentencing guidelines. He will
be sentenced on July 29.
The unanimous verdict
brings to an end a nineweek trial which is part of
what has been described
as the largest hedge fund
insider trading case in US
history.
Central to the prosecution's
evidence
were

Raja Rajaratnam

tapped
phone
calls
between Rajaratnam and
corporate insiders, including two Indian Americans,
Intel treasury official Rajiv
Goel
and
former
McKinsey & Co partner
Anil Kumar, both of whom
testified against him.
Prosecutors
argued
Rajratnam made as much
as $63.8 million in illegal
profits from 2003 to

March 2009 by trading on
tips from a network of
highly-placed corporate
insiders.
The companies traded
included Google, Intel and
Hilton Hotels, the prosecution said.
The wiretaps were particularly damning for the
defence as Rajaratnam is
heard discussing inside
information he received
from Goldman Sachs
Indian American director,
Rajat Gupta, about a
potential acquisition the
firm was expected to
make. Gupta was not
charged in the case.
Gupta's
alleged
involvement in the case
brought Goldman Sachs
CEO Lloyd Blankfein to
the courtroom as witness
for the prosecution.

Eco-friendly fabric from waste banana stems
With growing demand for
eco-friendly
clothing,
especially in overseas
markets, led researchers
in Gujarat to manufacture
fabric from the banana
plant’s stem. Surat-based
Manmade
Textile
Research
Association
(MANTRA),
Navsari
Agricultural University
(NAV)
and
Central
Institute for Research on
Cotton
Technology
(ICAR), Mumbai have initiated a project to produce
commercially-viable textile from the banana plant.
Scientists working on
the World Bank-funded
project have already got
partial success in manufacturing thick fabric suit-

ed for cold weather. They
are also working on commercial viability of technical textile applications
such as artificial leather,
acrylic fabric for vertical
blind and other types of
curtains, bedsheets and
tapestry. “Scientists have
developed a modified
spinning and weaving unit
from traditional ones used
for cotton value chain.
Initial success has inspired
them to work harder to
produce lean fabric suitable for tropical weather,”
said Arun Jariwala, president of MANTRA.
M G Parikh, a scientist at MANTRA said the
project envisages to utilize
waste
banana
pseu-

dostems, which pose the
problem of disposal and
are available almost free in
central and south Gujarat.
The project includes creating facility for banana
fibre extraction from the
stem of the banana plant,
cleaning, grading and converting it into a finished
product, he said.
“Banana plant fibre is
more eco-friendly than
other natural and manmade fibres. We are working on blending it with
cotton as well as synthetic
fibres. These fibres can
also be used for packing
cloth for agriculture produce, ships towing ropes,
wet drilling cables,” said
R G Patil, NAU scientist.

Greek concerns trigger Euro sell off
The week began in the UK with
sterling on the back foot with
risk aversion entering the market on the back of Greece’s current debt issue dragging down
the euro which in turn pulled
sterling lower. In terms of data it
was a very quiet week with the
main focus turning to the Bank
of England’s inflationary report.
Governor King’s comments
regarding inflation sent sterling
higher across the board gaining
over half a cent after giving his
speech.
King’s comments
regarding inflation possibly
heading towards 5% this year
before lowering in 2011 had an
impact on the markets being
that sterling is so sensitive to
any inflationary measures positive or negative. Midweek saw
UK
manufacturing
and
Industrial production figures
which came in a lot lower than
expected as came as surprise to
the market where we saw sterling fell more half a cent against
the euro and US dollar. This
going a long way to show that
not all is well into manufacturing industry and will serve a
reminder that UK interest rates
will remain possible well into
2012. The week ended with sterling trading towards the low of
the week at 1.6227 on the back
of a stronger euro/dollar with

better than expected
GDP giving the euro
a push above 1.4305
in early morning
London trade.
We began last
week in the Euro
zone with more
problems for Greece
as there were comments
from
a
German report that
they may need to
leave the Euro. From
this speculation we
saw the Euro weaken against the pound to levels as
high as 1.1450. Following on
from this Greece scheduled to
auction €125bn of 6 month bills
as S&P lowered the country’s
credit rating from B to BB- basically becoming junk status.
Moodys and Fitch are also looking to review downgrading
Greece’s rating saying that further reduction was possible.
Another cut would make Greece
the lowest-rated nation in the
euro zone. Will the euro trade
lower? The Euro re-bounded
from the lows of 1.1056 from
the previous week looking as if
it could head towards the 1.16
levels. Following on the main
piece of data from the euro zone
early last week came in the form
of a possible deal regarding

Greece that could come as early
as June in terms of its debt
restructuring , this saw the euro
gain over half a cent against the
US dollar in mid morning trade.
As Officials said the deal could
total €27bn in 2012 and €32 in
2013. Europe is expected to
have a higher inflationary figure
– this will lead to speculation of
another rate hike in the Euro.
There are only a few ways in
which you can control inflation
– In the UK we have introduced
various austerity measures
which have had an effect on
consumer spending. In Europe
however, the ECB are struggling
to control inflation via austerity
measures, the moment it is mentioned the Greeks riot! The only
way they can control inflation is

by raising interest
rates, this will surely
not work for a lot of
the economies within
the Euro Zone, like
Greece,
Portugal,
Ireland, etc... Will the
ECB be digging a bigger hole, which they
will struggle to climb
out of?
The week started
quietly in the US with
the first piece of data
coming on Tuesday
with a positive Import
Prices Index although this failed
to have any real effect on the
market. A quiet week continued
as US Trade balance came out
negatively on Wednesday but yet
again failed to impact the markets heavily. The Dollar showed
some positive movement on
Thursday as speculation that
interest rates in the UK would
remain the same, yet still we
saw fundamental data for the
US fail to have an impact as PPI
and retail sales came out positively but caused little movement. On Friday the USD
strengthened heavily due to a
case of risk aversion through
commodity prices falling, causing people to take money out of
these riskier assets and put back
into the USD.

www.rationalfx.com
Information provided by RationalFX.
None of the information on this page
constitutes, nor should be construed
as financial advice. The exchange
rates used are the commercial foreign
exchange rates provided by
RationalFX. For a live quote or to find
out more about how RationalFX can
help you, call us on 0207 220 8181.

22

PAkIstAn-BAglAdesh-srI lAnkA

Asian Voice - Saturday 21st May 2011

Stop political activities, Pak court tells Zardari In focuS
Lahore: In a setback to
Asif Ali Zardari, a
Pakistani court ruled that
the president, who is also
the chief of the ruling PPP,
should suspend political
activities and must be
impartial.
A four-judge bench of
the Lahore high court
headed by chief justice
Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry
issued the order in
response to petitions that
had challenged the holding
of the dual posts of president and PPP chief by
Zardari.
The court, which had
reserved its judgment in
the case in March, said the
presidency should not be
used for political activities. The president is not

Asif Ali Zardari

supposed to engage in
political activities and is
bound to be impartial, the
bench said in its 35-page
ruling.
The bench noted that
the supreme court had
already ruled that the pres-

ident should discharge his
duties and functions with
complete
neutrality,
impartiality and aloofness
from any partisan political
interest.
The high court hoped
that the president would
abide by the law and disassociate himself from the
political office. Lawyer A
K Dogar, who is also the
counsel for Jamaat-udDawah
chief
Hafiz
Muhammad Saeed, was
among those who filed
petitions that challenged
the holding of the two
posts by Zardari.
The government's legal
panel had initially contested the petitions but later
boycotted
proceedings
after expressing their dis-

Bangladesh rejects rights
group's criticism
Dhaka: Bangladesh has
rejected an international
human rights group's
claim that the government's special anti-crime
force is involved in torture of suspects and
extrajudicial killings.
"The allegations are
baseless. The special
force acts only in selfdefense. It does not kill
anyone," Home Minister
Sahara
Khatun
told
reporters while responding to a report by New
York-based
Human
Rights Watch.

Pak parliament
warns US against
another raid

Islamabad: Pakistani parliament
unanimously
passed a resolution condemning the American
unilateral action to take
out terror mastermind
Osama bin Laden and
threatened to block the US
and allied troops' supply
route to Afghanistan in
the event of more such
attacks.
The
resolution
denounced the operation
as a "violation of the country's sovereignty' ' and
came a day after Pakistan's
military leadership held an
in-camera briefing for the
lawmakers on the operation.
ISI chief Ahmed Shuja
Pasha, director general
military operations Ashfaq
Nadeem and deputy chief
of air staff operations Air
Marshal Hasan's briefing
to the parliament was
unprecedented in the
country's history . The military that has ruled the
country for decades admitted its failure before the
parliament and offered
itself for accountability for
the first time.
The resolution said,
"The unilateral actions,
such as those conducted
by the US forces in
Abbottabad, as well as the
continued drone attacks
on
the
territory
of
Pakistan are not unacceptable.

In its report released
in Dhaka last week, the
rights group called for
reform within six months
of the Rapid Action
Battalion, which it alleged
has killed about 200 suspects
since
Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina
took power 2009. It said
the force should be disbanded within six months
if not reformed.
The Rapid Action
Battalion
itself
denounced the report as
"baseless and one-sided."
"The force has been

working under the laws of
the land, and we are not
above law," spokesman
Wing Commander M.
Sohail said.
Human Rights Watch
said a total 732 suspects
have been killed since the
battalion was formed in
2004 under a previous
government.
The special force usually
describes
such
killings as the result of
shootouts triggered by
Islamist militant suspects
who opened fire on battalion members.

India will stand by
Afghanistan: Manmohan

Afghan president Hamid Karzai greets Manmohan Singh

Kabul:
Indian Prime
Minister
Manmohan
Singh who was on a twoday visit to Afghanistan
last week said India would
stand by Afghanistan
'through thick and thin'.
The prime minister
was welcomed by Afghan
President Hamid Karzai in
the main courtyard of the
presidential palace complex. “This is a tremendous honour for the
Afghan people to welcome
his excellency Manmohan
Singh to his second
home,” Karzai told the
Indian prime minister.
Manmohan
Singh
responded: 'It is always a
great honour and privilege
to visit you. It is an honour for the entire people of
India.
India
and
Afghanistan are partners
in progress. We will stand
by you through thick and
thin and reaffirm our soli-

darity with the people and
govt of Afghanistan.'
The ceremonial guard
of honour was given by the
uniformed members of the
Afghan National Army,
Afghan Air Force and the
police. After the guard of
honour, Karzai introduced
the senior members of his
government to the visiting
leader.
Manmohan Singh also
introduced members of his
delegation to the Afghan
president.
During the ceremonial
welcome, the band played
the national anthems of
India and Afghanistan.
Prime
Minister
Manmohan
Singh
is
accompanied by National
Security
Advisor
Shivshankar
Menon,
Special
Envoy
on
Afghanistan S.K. Lamba
and Foreign Secretary
Nirupama Rao.

satisfaction with the court.
Following this, the high
court started ex-parte proceedings.
Zardari
regularly
chairs meetings of the
PPP's top leadership at the
presidency.
His son Bilawal is the
chairman of the PPP but
he has not yet started
political activities as he is
studying in Britain.
A spokeswoman for
Zardari says she had not
seen the ruling and
declined comment. It's
unclear what impact the
ruling will have, but it will
likely to put Zardari on the
defensive. PPP is seen as
very unpopular and has
struggled to keep its ruling
coalition intact.

Stop treating
India as 'biggest
enemy': Sharif
tells Pakistan

Gunmen kill Saudi diplomat in Karachi
Karachi: Gunmen on motorcycles attacked a car
belonging to the Saudi Arabian consulate in the
Pakistani city of Karachi on Monday killing a Saudi
diplomat, police and the Saudi ambassador said. The
shooting occurred days after unidentified attackers
threw two hand grenades at the Saudi consulate in the
city, Pakistan's commercial hub. No one was hurt in
that attack. "We condemn this attack. No one who carries out this kind of attack can be a Muslim," the
ambassador, Abdul Aziz al-Ghadeer, said. He did not
give details on the rank of the diplomat who was killed.

80 killed in Pak suicide attacks
Shabqadar (Pakistan): Pakistan's Taliban claimed their
first major strike in revenge for Osama bin Laden's
death as at least 80 people were killed in a double suicide bombing on paramilitary police. More than 100
people were wounded in the deadliest attack this year.
The explosions detonated in northwest Pakistan as
newly trained paramilitary cadets were getting into
buses and coaches for a 10-day leave after a training
course, and they were wearing civilian clothes, police
said. "This was the first revenge for Osama's martyrdom. Wait for bigger attacks in Pakistan and
Afghanistan," Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah
Ehsan said.

29 Bangladeshis held in UAE
Abu Dhabi: At least 29 Bangladeshis have been
detained in Abu Dhabi for entering the United Arab
Emirates (UAE) and working without proper authentication. Their employer, a Bangladeshi who sheltered
them, has been arrested. Maj Gen Nasser bin Al
Awadhi Al Menhali, assistant under secretary of the
ministry of interior, said 220 people were detained for
violating labour and residency laws. Of these, 29 were
Bangladeshis.

Afghan intelligence foils bid
on Indian diplomat's life

Nawaz Sharif

Islamabad: As Pakistan's
powerful military held out
threats to India, former
Prime Minister Nawaz
Sharif has called for reappraisal of ties with its
neighbour to move forward and progress, saying
Islamabad must stop treating New Delhi as its
"biggest enemy".
Sharif, who was earlier
involved in talks with
India when the Kargil crisis erupted, also sought a
probe into the 1999 conflict with India.
The former Prime
Minister, who is the chief
of main opposition PMLN party, is currently on a
three-day visit to southern
Sindh province where he
made the remarks during
an interaction with the
media in Karachi.
He called on the government to also conduct
an inquiry into the 2006
killing of Baloch leader
Nawab Akbar Bugti in a
military operation and the
carnage in Karachi on May
12, 2007 that killed over
40 people who tried to
rally in support of thendeposed Supreme Court
Chief Justice Iftikhar
Chaudhry.
Sharif, whose government was deposed in a
military coup led by former President Pervez
Musharraf in 1999, reiterated his demand for the
budgets of the military and
the ISI to be placed before
Parliament for scrutiny in
line with the practice in
other democracies.
He said one of his
biggest regrets was not
taming the powerful military when he was Prime
Minister in the 1990s.

Kabul: The Afghan intelligence has arrested two suspected attackers who were allegedly planning to assassinate the Indian Council General in Jalalabad. The
National Directorate of Security (NDS) spokesperson
Luftullah Mashal said the men were paid by a foreign
intelligence service to attack the councilate in the eastern province of Nangarhar. Mashal said the agency had
given the assassins, a car and weapons apart from the
money to carry out the attack. The arrests come on the
day when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has
arrived here on a two-day visit to Kabul.

Fazlur’s party prays for Osama
Islamabad: Pakistan's main right-wing party, Jamiat
Ulema Islam-Fazl, a Deobandi organization that had so
far desisted from joining public rallies and protests
against the killing of Osama bin Laden by US, broke its
silence in the National Assembly last week and condoled the death of the al- Qaida chief. Maulvi
Asmatullah of the JUI-F, which is led by Maulana
Fazlur Rehman, stood from his seat and offered prayers
for bin Laden. He was joined by other legislators from
his party as well as from the opposition benches.

US questions Laden's wives
as ISI watches

Washington: US intelligence officials have reportedly
questioned the three "hostile" widows of Osama bin
Laden in Pakistan but under the watchful eyes of the
ISI. The women — who were all interviewed together this week — were "hostile" towards the Americans,
according to a senior Pakistani government official
and two senior US officials , CNN reported. The eldest of the three widows spoke for the group.
Members of Pakistan's military-run ISI were in the
room along with the US intelligence officers. The
officials said that the questioning didn't yield much
new information, while adding that it was early in the
investigative process.

Ilyas Kashmiri may succeed Osama
Washington: Former Pakistani commando Ilyas
Kashmiri, cited as one of the masterminds of a plot for
a series of "Mumbai-style" attacks in European cities in
2010, could replace Osama bin Laden as the new terrorist head of Al Qaeda, according to US officials. The
bearded Kashmiri, who is also named in the terrorism
case against Pakistani Canadian accused Tahawwur
Hussain Rana, has been described by one senior US
official as a rising star in al Qaeda terror group, NBC
News reported. Rana, who is accused of providing
material support to Pakistan based terror outfit
Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and providing a cover to
Pakistani-American David Coleman Headley for scouting targets for the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, has
already on trial in Chicago.

worlD

Asian Voice - Saturday 21st May 2011

In focUS
Aussie teen crowned Miss India
Worldwide
Dubai: Miss India Australia Ankita Cheryl has
clinched the title of Miss India Worldwide 2011 beating
25 Indian women competing for the title in Abu Dhabi.
Cheryl received a cash prize of 100,000 dirhams (USD
27,224) in addition to modelling contracts and sponsor
prizes. Miss India USA was the first runner-up while
Anuradha Devika from Trinidad was crowned the second runner-up. The pageant consisted of a gown segment, talent show and question-and-answer session.
Participants were judged on personality, talent, stage
presence, confidence and self belief.

Hindus top in education in US
Washington: Hindus top in education in America as
compared to any other religious group, according to
â&#x20AC;&#x153;US Religious Landscape Surveyâ&#x20AC;? of American
adults by the prestigious Pew Forum on Religion &
Public Life posted on its website. Forty eight per
cent Hindus have post-graduate degrees, followed by
Jews at the second place at 35%. This Survey also
points out that Hindus have second highest income
levels in the country, second only to Jews. While
national total is only 18%, 43% of Hindus come in
$100,000+ income category as compared to 46% of
Jews and 28% of others. The Survey further indicates that Hindus top in marriage also with 79%
married, followed by Mormons at 71%, while the
national total is 54%.

India to hire 10,000 teachers from Taiwan
Taipei: India plans to recruit up to 10,000 teachers
from Taiwan to meet growing demand for Chinese language classes, Taiwan's education ministry said last
week. Kapil Sibal, India's minister of human resources,
made the proposal during a meeting with Taiwan's education minister Wu Ching-ji in India last week, an education official said. Sibal said there was a strong
demand for Chinese teachers as about 10,000 Indian
high schools currently offer Chinese classes, or plan to
do so, the official added. Taipei will set up a taskforce
to train India-bound teachers and hold more talks with
New Delhi by the end of this year on the teaching programme, she said.

Jayant Patel likely to face
new trials in Australia

Melbourne: Indian-origin surgeon Jayant Patel could
face another trial relating to the alleged removal of a
healthy gland from a patient's neck, an Australian court
was informed. Prosecutor Ross Martin SC confirmed in
the Brisbane Supreme Court that the crown still
intended to proceed with a charge of grievous bodily
harm relating to patient Darcy Russell Blight. The 61year-old Patel is now facing seven charges of fraud, and
one of attempted fraud, relating to his application to
work at Bundaberg Base Hospital. It is also alleged
Patel hid the fact that he had been found guilty of gross
negligence in the US and was banned from performing
oesophagectomies and some abdominal procedures.
Last year, Patel, dubbed as "Dr death" in Australian
media.

Indian jumps off Dubai's Burj Khalifa
Dubai: The man who committed suicide by jumping off
the world's tallest tower Burj Khalifa has been identified as an Indian, the Consulate General of India here
confirmed. The 38-year-old, who jumped off the highrise last week was identified as Athiraman Kannan
from Tamil Nadu and Dubai police is investigating the
circumstances around his death. A statement from the
Consulate General of India said: "An Indian national,
Athiraman Kannan, fell from Burj Khalifa and died on
May 10, 2011. Thirty-eight-year-old Kannan was from
the state of Tamil Nadu and was an employee of
Arabtec, working as a cleaner in the building". Dubai
Police said that the man jumped from an air vent on
147th floor and landed on a terrace at the tower's
108th floor.

Indian kids beat global science geeks
Los Angeles: A 16-year-old boy from Chennai bagged
the first prize in chemistry at the Intel International
Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), the world's
largest international pre-college science competition.
Raghavendra Ramachandran, from Chennai's St. John's
International School, won over $9,000 in prize money
for his research in the field of drug synthesis. Some
other winners from India included brother-sister duo of
Hetal and Ankur Vaishnav from Rajkot, who received
the second prize in the environmental-science category
for developing a novel and economic way of recycling
rexine waste material. Manosij Ghosh from South
Point School in Kolkata also got a second prize (mathematical sciences) for his work on integer partitions
and sequences.

23

Decks cleared for biggest ever
Indo-US defence deal

New Delhi: India may
have ejected American
fighters out of the $10.4
billion race to supply 126
medium multi-role combat
aircraft (MMRCA) but US
really has no reason to
crib. Decks have now been
cleared for the biggest-ever
Indo-US defence deal: the
$4.1 billion contract for 10
C-17
Globemaster-III
giant strategic airlift aircraft.
Indian defence ministry sources aid the
Globemaster deal, a direct
government-to-government contract under the
American FMS (foreign
military sales) programme,
should get the "final nod"
from
the
Cabinet

Committee on Security
"within this month".
"All issues connected
to costing and offsets
(under
which
Globemaster-manufacturer Boeing will plough back
30% of the contract value
into India) have been
resolved," said a source.
IAF certainly needs to
augment its strategic airlift
capability to swiftly move
combat
systems
and

troops over large national
and international distances, given that it has
just over a dozen Russianorigin IL-76 `Gajraj' aircraft. Capable of carrying a
payload of almost 170,000
pounds and landing even
at small forward airbases
with semi-prepared runways, the four-engine
rugged C-17s can transport tanks and troops over
2,400 nautical miles.

That's not all on the
US arms deals front. India
is already conducting commercial negotiations for
the around $1 billion "follow-on contract" for four
more P-8I Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, eight
of which were earlier
ordered for $2.1 billion in
2009.
Similarly, negotiations
for six more C-130J
`Super Hercules' heavylift aircraft will begin soon.
"IAF has already inducted
two of the earlier six C130Js ordered for $1.2 billion in 2008. Two more
will come around July,
with the last two in
September-October," said
the MoD source.

IMF chief denied bail in sex assault case
New York: International
Monetary Fund (IMF)
chief Dominique StraussKahn was on Monday
denied bail as he appeared
in court here to answer
charges of trying to sexually assault a maid in his
New York hotel suite.
Criminal court judge
Melissa Jackson agreed
with prosecutors' assertions that he is a flight
risk, saying: 'The fact that
he was about to board a
flight, that raises some
concerns.'
Strauss-Kahn, 62, is
next set to appear in court
May 20.
He was widely expected to become a French

presidential
candidate
before the case sent shock
waves in French politics
and threw the international financial institution into
turmoil.
Prosecutors
argued
against bail, saying they
believe Strauss-Kahn has
engaged in 'similar acts' at
least once and that there
would be nothing to prevent him from returning to
France and living 'open
and notoriously' like film
director Roman Polanski.
Prosecutors presented
a long list of charges
against him, including two
counts of first-degree
criminal sexual act, one
count
of
first-degree

Dominique Strauss-Kahn

attempted rape, one count
of first-degree sexual
abuse, one count of second-degree
unlawful
imprisonment, one count
of forcible touching and
one count of third-degree
sexual abuse.
Defence
attorneys

noted Strauss-Kahn's lack
of a criminal record and
said he would be prepared
to stay with his daughter
in New York if released on
bail. They suggested a bail
amount of $1 million.
But the judge told
Strauss-Kahn's defence
attorney
Benjamin
Brafman: 'The same rules
apply to your defendant as
all defendants, and I am a
fair judge.'
Police allege StraussKahn sexually assaulted a
32-year-old woman on
Saturday at the Sofitel
hotel in Manhattan, then
quickly headed off to New
York's JFK airport to board
a Paris-bound flight.

International court prosecutor
Deadline for Nepal's new
seeks arrest of Gaddafi
constitution extended by a year
Kathmandu:
Nepal's
nearly
six-decade-old
struggle to get a constitution took another blow
last week as power-hungry politicians failed to
keep their pledge to the
nation and finally admitted they would not be
able to complete the new
constitution by May 28.
"We have agreed it is
impossible," said Maoist
chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal
Prachanda after emergency consultations with
communist Prime Minister
Jhala Nath Khanal. "We
have also agreed that the
term of the constituent
assembly (that is drafting
the new constitution)
should be extended."
Khanal's astuteness in
handing over plum ministries to the Maoists this
month and ensure their
backing, despite the disapproval of his own party,
the opposition and the
public, paid off with the
Maoists
agreeing,
in
return, to support his proposal to extend the constituent assembly's tenure
by a year. After the cabinet
endorsed the proposal,
Maoist law and justice
minister Prabhu Shah
asked the constituent
assembly secretariat to
start the ball rolling for

amending the constitution. Now two-thirds of
the 601-seat assembly will
have to approve for the
interim constitution to be
amended and the May 28,
2011 deadline for the new
constitution to be extended to May 28, 2012.
This is the second
extension sought. The parties were given two years
after
the
constituent
assembly election in 2008
to draft the new constitution. Now the task has
been spread over double
that time but still there is
no certainty that it would
be completed by 2012.
The fresh turmoil in
Nepal has left India concerned.
The
Indian
ambassador to Nepal,
Rakesh Sood, met opposition leader Sushil Koirala
during the day to ask him
about his party's decision.
Though Koirala's Nepali
Congress is the second
largest party after the
Maoists, the PM says he
has the support of twothird of the assembly
members and can have the
amendment
pushed
through
without
the
approval of the Nepali
Congress, his old ally
whom he deserted to join
hands with the Maoists
for power.

Tripoli: The UN war
crimes court's chief prosecutor applied on Monday
for
a
warrant
for
Muammer Gaddafi's arrest
for crimes against humanity, a day after his regime
offered truce in return for
a halt in Nato air strikes.
Nato, meanwhile, conducted fresh air raids on
an outlying suburb of

Tripoli, destroying a radar
base, the state news
agency JANA and residents said.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo,
the International Criminal
Court prosecutor, said
warrants were also sought
against three Gaddafi
sons, his intelligence chief
Abdullah Senussi and
other officials.

Everyone can change if they want to
If you have ever failed at
something in your life and
you use this as a reason
and excuse to not
progress then you are creating hurdles and barriers
that are unnecessarily
hindering your personal
growth and progression.
Remember there is no
‘reason’ why any failure
has to become your terminal illness unless you give
it permission and allow it
to be. Nothing or no one
is perfect, that is an
absolute fact.
This
shouldn’t give you an
excuse to operate as
mediocre, but should
encourage you to stop giving yourself a hard time
and start promising that
you will be the best you
can be regardless of what
life throws at you. Life is
very short – ask someone
who is over the age of 85.
So make the most of every
second and step out of
your comfort zone.
I heard a great quote:
‘Losers live in the past.
Winners learn from the
past and enjoy working in
the present toward the
future’ Denise Waitley.
Although it is strongly
believed that the past
influences our future and
can have a profound
effect on how we are
today – it is important to
be very mindful that the
past does not equal the
future unless we allow it
to. We often use the past
as a map and blueprint
for our future. These
parameters are completely fictitious and often
restrict our potential and
growth.

Our mind is not intelligent enough decipher
between negative and
positive
thoughts.
Therefore it takes on
whatever we give most of
our energy to. Question:
are you typically feeling
negative or positive?
Your world will reflect
wherever you are in your
thoughts.
Understand
and be very aware of this
now. It is essential for
your own emotional and
mental well being that
you encourage seeing the
‘good’ and the ‘positive’
as opposed to the negative.
Discourage and
eliminate negative emotions, as they do not serve
you well. Let what you
are grateful for overwhelm what is ‘wrong’.
Be thankful for the
basics, that is a good
place to start (the five
senses, ability to read,
roof over your head etc).
Remember, life could be a
lot worse.
If you have people
around you that constantly talk about your issues
and encourage you to
‘live in the past’ be aware
that that this is hugely
unhelpful to your betterment and freedom from
issues that make you feel
‘bad’.
Choose to be
around
people
who
inspire you and who are
positive.
This will
encourage you to have a
better, more positive
energy about you, which
is infectious.
Make a
decision to better your
life and stick to it.
Diplomatically distance
yourself from people who

don’t let you - let go of
your past. Stop blaming
external sources for your
misery and proactively
determine what it is going
to take for you to move
into a better future.
I am running a one
day Impact Boot Camp in
June and July that will
focus on how you can get
attuned to yourself, being
the best – regardless of
what life throws at you.
This session will absolutely work on elements of
this and previous articles.
The intimate one-day
event will definitely help
you get closer to the happiness and fulfilment you
deserve. An early bird
discount applies to those
who book before the end
of May and places are filling up fast; so do get in
touch
by
emailing
mamta@thinkspalndon.c
om. Alternatively you
may prefer one to one
coaching which is a greatbespoke alternative, again
do email me for further
information. Lastly, I also
provide training and
development for small,
medium and large sized
businesses,
email:
mamta@thinkspalondon.com.
If you like my articles
and want to stay connected join my facebook page:
think spa London and follow my on twitter (under
the same name). My priority is to help you. So if
you have any particular
subject’s you would like
me to write about please
feel free to get in touch.
Sending you all positive
energy, always.

Nasa invites 5 Mumbai kids

Three months ago a 'lunabot' was born at a
Goregaon lab. Now, it's an

expert at extracting oxygen
from sand particles found
on the lunar surface.

Cartoon: Jami

N
w ow
ru om
M lin en
Ja am g
el ya ta
ec w &
tio in
n

………………with women ruling,
I resign from domestic
do’s……..now onwards it is
you who will be dusting,
sweeping floors, doing dishes,
laundry and whatever!!!

The indigenously-built
robot will now fly to the
US with its creators, a
team of five Indian students, to participate in
Nasa's second annual lunabotics competition. The
competition will be held at
Kennedy Space Center in
Florida from May 23 to 28.
The team of six consists of Ronak Gandhi
(20), Chirag Chauhan
(20), Viditi Parikh (19),
Vaibhav Gandhi (19),
Suparna Rao (19) from
Narsee Monjee Institute of
Management
Studies
(NMIMS) along with team
leader Ravi Teja Nallapu
(23) of the University of
Houston. The challenge
for the students was to
design and build a remotecontrolled or autonomous
excavator, called a lunabot,
which could collect and
deposit a minimum of 10
kg of lunar simulant within
15 minutes. The complexities of the challenge
include the abrasive characteristics of the lunar simulant, the weight and size
limitations of the lunabot.

In divine light
By Rajen Vakil

Introduction and meaning of
Nala and Damayanti

Brihadasva, a rishi, came
to the Pandavas during
their exile. ‘Brihad’ means
large or whole, where
everything is one and
‘asva’ literally means a
horse, the deeper meaning
being the senses or emotions. ‘Asva’ also means
time. At the time of the
rishi’s coming, Yudhisthira
was going through deep
anguish and suffering. He
explained to the rishi that
he could not recollect any
other person being in such
pain. The rishi then narrated to him the story of
the ancient king Nala, who
went through even greater
suffering than Yudhisthira.
Here, we see how
Brihadasva represents the
higher emotional centre
within us where everything is one whole or large,
with no duality. On the
contrary, Yudhisthira is
identified in his lower
emotions. In times of deep
pain and torment, if we
can connect with this
higher centre within us,
then a communication of
understanding could come
from that centre. This elevates us to a higher level of
consciousness from where
we see our suffering in a
different light. Here, the
higher communicates with
the lower in the form of a
story, as described herein.
Virasen, the king of a
country called Nishada,
had a handsome son Nala.
He was full of lustre, like a
sun and very brave. He
was deft in the handling of
horses (asva) and knew
their deeper secrets. An
expert archer, his attention
was one-pointed and was
always generous and
truthful.
At about the same
time, Vidharbha was ruled
by Bhimasen, who had no
children. A rishi called
Daman came to his kingdom and the king, along
with his queen, went to
pay respect and ask the
saint to favour them with a
child. The rishi granted the
king’s wish and a beautiful
daughter, together with
three sons, was born to the
queen. The daughter was
named Damayanti in honour of the rishi through
whose grace she was born.
She grew up to be the
most beautiful princess in
the land. She was wise,
generous, and her actions
pleased everyone, including the gods. Many kings
longed for her hand in
marriage but there was
only one other person who
matched and complemented her and that was Nala.
Even though they did
not know of each other,
they were made for each
other. In Nala’s court,
everyone praised the qual-

ities of Damayanti, and in
Vidharbha Damayanti’s
maids always talked of
Nala. Hence, even before
they had met, an invisible
attraction grew between
them. Nala could not
understand this fire that
was growing within him
and went to sit alone in
the garden to meditate.
Here, he saw a pair of
beautiful white swans
whose wings were lined
with gold. He caught hold
of one of them. The swan
cried out, “O king, please
let me go. I will do some
good for you. I will go to
Damayanti and speak
about you in such a way
that she will think about
you and none else.”
Nala released the swan
that immediately flew to
Vidharbha and sat in the
garden of the king’s
palace, along with a group
of swans. Damayanti was
playing with her maids
when she saw the swans.
She wanted to catch them
and each of her maids ran
behind one. The one that
Damayanti ran behind was
the same swan that had
met Nala. The swan
addressed Damayanti, “In
the country of Nishada
there lives a king called
Nala, he is handsomer
then all the other kings
put together. If you marry
him, this life of yours will
be fulfilled. I have seen
gods, demigods, and other
forms but there is none
like him. You are a jewel
among women and him a
lion
among
men.”
Damayanti told the swan
“Please go and tell the
same words to Nala.” The
swan flew back to Nishada
and recounted to Nala all
that had happened.
After her meeting with
the swan, Damayanti
thought of Nala all the
time. She hardly ate or
slept and her face became
pale and her body weak.
She always looked up to
the sky and was lost in
dreams all the time. Her
maids read the signs and
went to her father (the
king) and told him of it.
Bhimasen realised that his

daughter had come of age
and that it was time to
seek a suitor for her. He
sent
his
messengers
throughout the land inviting all the kings to participate in her ‘swayamvara’.
When the kings heard that
the beautiful Damayanti
was to choose a husband,
all of them started coming
in large numbers to the
kingdom of Vidharbha
with the desire to wed
Damayanti.
While this was happening,
Narada
and
Parvan, two great rishis,
went to Indra’s court in
the heavens. Indra welcomed them with respect
and asked what was happening on earth. They told
him of the swayamvara of
Damayanti. After hearing
the rishis description of
the beauty and virtues of
Damayanti, the gods
Indra, Agni, Varuna, and
Yama, decided to go to
earth
and
vie
for
Damayanti’s hand. They
were sure that she would
choose one of them above
mere mortals.
Now let us understand the story thus far.
‘Nala’ means to bind, that
within us that holds
together our being – the
controller or the soul, the
seer within us. He is the
king of Nishada; ‘Shada’
means to fall and ‘Ni’ +
‘shada’ means not to fall,
one that is rock solid or
that which is not fallen –
the structure of the soul is
always high, eternal, and
solid. But it is asleep,
immersed in the hypnosis
of life, and identified. It
has to wake up from this
identification. To wake
up, it has to use the mind
and develop the capacity
to wake up – the capacity
to hold and control. This
power to resist and control is called ‘dam’, which
is the root of the word
Damayanti. So Nala is the
soul who now desires
freedom and Damayanti
is his power to walk
towards that moksha or
freedom. The soul must
marry its power and work
to increase its intensity,
which we call as will. This
work is sadhna or austerity and requires years of
practice. This practice
leads the seeker through
many of life’s tribulations,
deep pain, and suffering,
the secrets of which are
hidden in this wonderful
story, which we shall continue in the next article.
The author can be
reached by emailing
3srb@live.com
(Edited by Chintu Gandhi)

All past articles on the Mahabharata can be
accessed from http://epaper.asianvoice.com or from
http://www.3stepbreath.com/mahabharata.html

InDIA

Asian Voice - Saturday 21st May 2011

In focus
Kisan Union chief Mahendra Singh
Tikait passes away
Farmer leader Mahendra Singh Tikait, who spearheaded several movements for peasants' rights in northern
India, died due to bone cancer. Tikait (76), who was
president of Bharatiya Kisan Union, had been suffering
from bone cancer since last year and breathed his last
at the residence of his son and BKU General Secretary
Rakesh Tikait here, family sources said. He is survived
by four sons and two daughters. His wife had died earlier. A large number of people gathered to pay tributes
to the farmer leader. The cremation would be held on
Monday at BKU headquarters in Sisauli. A popular
leader among farmers, Tikait had led a number of mass
kisan movements against the state and central governments to support the rights of the farmers.

Gujarati boy in Poland astronomy Olympiad
Ahmedabad student Sharad Mirani will represent India
at the 5th International Olympiad on Astronomy and
Astrophysics (IOAA) to be held in Poland during
August 25 to September 3 this year. Mirani is member
of the five-member team representing India. Other students are Jeevan Priya ( Hyderabad), R. S. B. Bhardwaj
(Hyderabad), Akhil Kedia (Kolkata) and Akshay
Krishna ( Bangalore). IOAA is a prestigious world
forum for scientific activities held for continuous 10
days in which high school students from around the
world compete against each other, solving theoretical,
analytical and observational problems in the fields of
astronomy and astrophysics.

Gujarat card not UID: Govt tells Nilekani
The state’s decision to create a data base of every citizen “does not propose to duplicate” government of
India’s Unique Identity (UID), Gujarat government has
clarified. On the basis of media reports that two state
government departments - revenue and food and civil
supplies - were involved in working out state’s own UID
project, UID project chief Nandan Nilekani had sought
explanation on why Gujarat was going ahead with its
own UID project when the Centre’s project was in its
advanced stages of implementation. Nilekani asked Dr
Ajay Bhushan Pandey, deputy director, UID, to seek
clarification from the Gujarat government. Pandey, in
turn, mailed to additional chief secretary, planning,
Varun Maira, to find out the truth. Sources said, Maira
has “replied back”, saying Gujarat’s project has a twofold aim – creating a bar-coded ration card and identifying beneficiaries of government schemes and subsidies.

School's health certificate to guide parents
Clean water, appropriate school bag load, hygiene,
junk-free canteen, outdoor activities and making parents aware of what nutrient is required at a particular
age- All this will be covered in a Quality Council of
India accreditation. And Chandigarh will become a
model for replication across the country. Executed
under collaboration with WHO, UT administration and
the Quality Council of India, the pilot project, which
has been recently concluded by Indian Council of
Medical Research (ICMR) and PGI, has submitted its
findings in all CBSE-affiliated schools. The project has
now been taken up by WHO and Quality Council of
India to start health manuals in all CBSE schools,
which will give schools ratings based on health and diet
promotions, said Dr Bharti from department of paediatric medicine in PGI, who is the principal investigator.
Fasting glucose cholesterol and triglycerides' levels
were higher in private vis-a-vis government schools.

Attempt on Dawood's brother's life
Fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's brother
Iqbal Kaskar was shot at by four gunmen in South
Mumbai on Tuesday night but he escaped unhurt while
his driver was killed. Two persons, suspected to be
among the assailants, were caught by the locals while
trying to flee from the spot near J J Hospital and handed over to the police, deputy commissioner of police
(operations) Rajkumar Vatkar said. He said two other
assailants managed to escape. "The assailants targeted
Kaskar in the firing but he was left unharmed," police
said adding his 40-year-old driver Arif Syed Abu Bukha
succumbed to bullet wounds.

A cool diet for animals at Vandalur zoo
In Chennai if humans are sweltering in the heat so are
the animals and birds at the Arignar Anna Zoological
Park in Vandalur. With the temperatures hovering
around 40-43 degrees Celsius over the past few days,
officials at the zoo, some 31 km south of Chennai, are
doing everything to ensure that the animals and birds
remain cool and healthy. Primates, elephants, bears
and chimps are given tender coconut juice and fed
watermelons, oranges and other fresh fruit twice or
thrice a day depending on their requirements. The four
chimps in the park are also given buttermilk.

25

Ramp walk for expecting mothers
By Swati Bhan
Walking on the ramp was
probably the last thing that
they had in mind but they
did it and did so for a
cause. As many as 25 pregnant women walked the
ramps in Vadodara at a
function recently to generate awareness about the
need for healthy baby and
healthy mothers.
The ramp walk organised by a Vadodara - based
NGO Shubhang, was with
the intention to tell the
would be mothers about
how one can think of raising a healthy baby even if
there is no help at home.
“The purpose was to tell
the mothers in a lighter
way on how they could
raise a healthy baby without a traditional help,’’
said Kunju Shah of the

NGO. She said that these
days most of them stay in
nuclear set ups, where
there are no elders available at home for guidance.
In such instances the
would be mothers have to
depend on outside help.
For the participants too
it was an exciting experience. “It is indeed difficult
to walk on the ramps while
you are expecting a child,

but we realised that it was
with a purpose and there
were many would mothers
who had a lot of queries
and were not aware of several unexpected situations
during this period,’’ said
Pinkal Patel one of the participants. She said that
participating on the ramp
was fun and getting your
doubts
cleared
from
experts present there was a

learning
experience
indeed.
Another participant
Sudha Shah said, “Walking
on the ramps in front of
doctors and experts was
indeed fun and a learning
experience, the doctors
gave us useful tips on the
kind of diet one has to take
during this period and
what steps one should take
during the time of the birth
of the child.’’
The members of the
NGO said that the ramp
walk was essentially for
traditional wear. “But we
had told the participants
that they could wear any
sort of clothes in which
they were comfortable,’’
said the members. So
while most of the participants were in the traditional saris few of them
were in western wear.

Sadhu learns music from Muslim Guru

It is not often that you see
a Swaminarayan sadhu,
draped in saffron, visit a
home
in
Juhapura,
Gujarat’s largest Muslim
ghetto. Equally uncommon
is to see a Muslim, his
head covered with a skullcap,
sitting
in
a
Swaminarayan temple. But
then music can bring down
the tallest of barriers.
For the past four years,
Narayan Charandas, 30, a
sadhu
of
the
Swaminarayan Chharodi
sect, has been learning the
sarangi from Ashraf Khan,

Women top Civil
Services exam
Chennai-based law graduate S Divyadharshini
has topped the prestigious Civil Services
Examination 2010 for
which the results were
announced earlier. The
second position was also
secured by a woman,
Sweta Mohanty, a computer engineer, while R V
Varun Kumar, a dentist
from Chennai, got the
third rank.A total of 920
candidates,
including
203 women, have been
selected for the Civil
Services, which attracts
the largest number of
candidates from the
entire length and breadth
of India.
Divyadharshini, who
has done BA, BL (Hons)
from Dr Ambedkar Law
University in Chennai,
cleared the exam in her
second
attempt.
Mohanty cleared the
exam
in
her
third
attempt. She was surprised to find herself topping the exam as she was
not expecting it. "I was
expecting some result
but not as a topper," she
said.
The top 25 candidates
consist of 20 men and
five women - 15 of whom
are
engineers,
five
belonging to Commerce,
M a n a g e m e n t ,
Humanities, Science and
Social Sciences; and five
belonging to medical science background.

one of the last exponents
of this difficult instrument
in Ahmedabad. It is routine for Khan, a teacher
with Kadamb school of
music and dance, to go to
the gurukul, sit in the temple and supervise Narayan
Swami’s riyaz.
“The expression on
people’s faces would often
change when I would tell
them I was learning sarangi from a Muslim guru,”
says the sadhu, who is also
studying for a degree in
Vedanta. “But the heads of
my sect — Shastri

Madhavpriyadas
and
Purani Balkrishnadas —
encouraged my aptitude
for music.”
The initial suggestion
was to pick up the violin.
“When I met guruji, however, he said that as a
sadhu I was used to a difficult life, Sarangi was the
way to go.” It was a natural fit. There are only five
people playing the sarangi
in Ahmedabad today, three
of whom belong to the
Khan family. This includes
Khan’s 80-year-old father
and his son.

“I have many Hindu
students but Narayan
Swami is my first sadhu
student and that too for the
sarangi,” Khan says. “Just
the groundwork takes five
years on this instrument.
Playing soothing music
takes another 10. This is
not an instrument you can
learn instantly to impress
the judges of a television
talent show.”
The main strings of a
sarangi are made from
goat intestine, but that
does not bother Narayan
Swami.

26

INDIA

Asian Voice - Saturday 21st May 2011

Ahmedabad one step closer
to World Heritage City status
Ahmedabad has been officially included in Unesco’s
World Heritage City tentative list. Ahmedabad is the
only city from India vying
for the coveted status.
There are over 250 World
Heritage Cities across the
globe, but none in India.
Ahmedabad’s proposal
was
sent
by
the
Archaeological Survey of
India (ASI) to Unesco in
March this year. This is the
first step towards realizing
the dream of getting the
status. Unesco will now
start analysing the various
documents to find out if
the city meets the different
criteria. The city has been
campaigning for the World
Heritage City status for
Ahmedabad for the last
three years. The process
started in January last year
when the Ahmedabad
Municipal
Corporation
(AMC) set up a special
team for preparing the
dossier to be given to
Unesco.
The technical team
which was headed by professor RJ Vasavda and
AMC’s advisory team led
by the mayor Asit Vora
and municipal commissioner IP Gautam finally

Sidi Saiyyed Mosque

sent the proposal ‘Historic
City of Ahmedabad’ to
ASI’s
director-general
Gautam Sengupta in

Jama Masjid

November last year. Out of
the 10 criteria drawn by
Unesco, Ahmedabad has
applied for three, including unique architecture
and
town-planning,
unique cultural traditions
and beliefs, living tradi-

tions and literary works of
outstanding
universal
value. “More than the proposal, it is Amdavadis who
have helped the city take
its first step towards getting the World Heritage
City status. Unesco has
officially notified that citizens’ participation is more
vital towards achieving the
status and it is this cooperation which has led us
to this stage,” said municipal
commissioner
Gautam. “Our proposal
has drawn similarities
with
Melaka
and
Georgetown in Malaysia
and Lyon in France which
are already World Heritage
Cities.”

Women power on the rise in India
Continued from page 1
And of course, the most
powerful woman - Sonia
Gandhi, (Aunty) is the
chairperson
of
UPA.
India's President, the
Speaker of the Lok Sabha
and the leader of the opposition are also women. The
phenomenon is noteworthy.
Meanwhile, AIADMK
chief Jayalalithaa was
swear in as chief minister
on Monday. She and her
allies had inflicted a crushing defeat to DMK and its
allies by capturing 203
seats leaving only 31 seats
for DMK and its allies.
Affectionately
called
''Amma'', the 63-year-old
Chief Minister was very
particular this time in not
letting the anti-DMK votes
get split and went out of
her way to make room for
allies.
Mamta banishes Red

Trinamool Congress
chief Mamata Banerjee
will become the country’s
14th woman chief minister
and the first in West
Bengal when she will be
sworn in on Friday.
Mamta’s party along with
its allies Congress and
SUCI gave a severe thrashing to the Left Front by

capturing 225 seats leaving just 63 seats for the
Leftists. This for the first
time that the Left Front
suffered a defeat in its 34year -old rule.
Rangasamy sworn in
Puducherry CM
N Rangasamy, who
ended the reign of his former party Congress in a
stunning electoral debut
for his outfit, was on
Monday sworn in as Chief
Minister of Puducherry for
a third term.
The
61-year-old
Rangasamy, chief of All
India NR Congress, was
administered oath of office
by Lt .Governor Iqbal
Singh at the Raj Nivas,
making him the 18th Chief
Minister of the Union
Territory.
No other minister was
sworn in along with Mr.
Rangasamy who had had
earlier headed Congress
Governments from 200106 and 2006-08 when he
was
unceremoniously
removed by the party High
Command following a
revolt by his cabinet colleagues.
Taking a sweet revenge
on
Congress,
Mr
Rangasamy, who broke
ranks with the party a few
months before the polls
and floated his own party,
which on its own bagged
15 seats. Its ally AIADMK
won five seats to give a
two-thirds majority to the
combine in the 30-member
Assembly. Congress could
win only seven seats and
its ally DMK two.
Oommen Chandy is
Kerala CM
Senior Congress leader
Oommen Chandy will be

sworn in as Kerala chief
minister on Wednesday,
bringing an end to the
tight race for the key post
in the faction-ridden party
in the state. The 67-yearold Chandy was on
Sunday
unanimously
elected by the Congress
Legislature Party as its
leader, paving the way for
his second stint as Chief
Minister heading the UDF,
which wrested power from
LDF by a wafer-thin
majority in the Assembly
polls. The UDF has won
72 seats and LDF managed to win 68 seats.
In Assam Arun Gogoi
will be sworn in as chief
minister on Wednesday
with Congress capturing
74 seats, leaving 18 sets
for opposition AWDF.
Cong got a drubbing in
AP by-poll
The Congress got a
drubbing in the Lok Sabha
by-election in Kadapa
where Jaganmohan Reddy
trounced his Congress and
TDP opponents by record
margins. Riding a wave of
ill-treatment of Y S
Rajasekhara Reddy's family by the party high command,
his
widow
Vijayamma, too, crushed
the
Congress
in
Pulivendula assembly byelection.
BJP sweeps Karnataka
by-polls
Ruling
BJP
in
Karnataka won all the
three
by-polls.
Chief
Minister B S Yeddyurappa
termed BJP's victory as a
befitting reply to the "reckless
charges"
hurled
against his government by
opposition Congress and
JD(S).

Beautifully lived life of
Manubhai M. Madhvani
Some people, even after touching
the pinnacle of success, prosperity
and popularity, feel they still have
an obligation towards society, particularly with members of their own
community, for sharing their good
fortune, knowledge and influence in
the corridors of power. Manubhai
M. Madhvani, one of the elders of
the Indian community in the United
Kingdom was a noble soul who had
the community’s interest at heart.
He was always available to help
and guide. His mellowed wisdom
was reflected in his sound advice to
those who seek his assistance.
Manubhai M Madhvani was
born in Jinja, Uganda on 15th
March 1930. The second son of
Muljibhai Prabhudas Madhvani, he
was sent to India for his education
at the age of ten. As a teenager, he
was very much influenced by the
teaching
and
philosophy
of
Mahatma Gandhi. In 1949, a few
years after the war ended,
Manubhai, now a young man of 19,
returned to Uganda to join his
father’s business. His first assignment was to work in the plantation
and that was followed by a period of
training.
From the early 1950’s Manubhai
and his elder brother Jayantbhai
worked at the side of their father,
who was a pioneer of the development of Uganda. They also started
industries in other East African
countries and in India. In 1950,
Manubhai, on a business trip to
Bombay, met and married Jyotiben
Pajwani who had just graduated
from University with a Bachelor of
Arts degree.
Their first son,
Kamlesh was born in 1954 and their
second son, Shrai was born later in
London.
In spite of the increasing
demands of managing the Madhvani
Group, Manubhai also served society directly. He gave his time to
Municipalities,
Chambers
of
Commerce and Educational bodies.
A long standing member of Lions
International, he also served as the
President of one of their clubs and
of the local Indian Association.
In
July
1971,
Jayantbhai
Madhvani died suddenly and the
following year, Idi Amin came to
power. A few months later,
Manubhai was arrested and imprisoned for several weeks in a military
prison outside Kampala, the capital
of Uganda. This latter experience
was to have a profoundly spiritual
influence on Manubhai, on his attitude to life and his relationship
with God. On his release from
prison, Manubhai left for the
United Kingdom. Manubhai was
disheartened by the sad demise of
his wife Jyotiben, who passed away
at a young age of 48 in 1982.
In
1985,
the
Uganda
Government invited the Madhvani
brothers back to Uganda to assist in
rebuilding the country by rehabilitating all the interests of the
Madhvani Group of Companies that
had ground to a halt in1972. It was
the first time that The World Bank
has been directly associated with
family entrepreneurs from the private sector and the triangular partnership with the Government of
Uganda has become a developmental show piece.

Manubhai M. Madhvani

Manubhai was very interested in
the next generation. He felt that
children born in the United
Kingdom and exposed to western
culture, are neither Indian nor
British. Unless positive efforts are
made there is a danger that they
may end up with a bland “pub culture” and lose their identity and
their unique blend of eastern and
western experiences. He felt that
concerted efforts by dedicated
members of the community are
urgently needed to create a suitable
environment for our youngsters so
that they can understand and appreciate our traditions, culture and
religion.
He then married Shardaben in
1994 and they were indeed a very
happy couple. In the same year,
Manubhai organised “Sambhav Festival of Spiritual Unity” which
was sponsored by the Madhvani
family. Religious leaders representing all the major religions were
invited to share the same platform.
For ten days, an average gathering
of 15,000 people per day witnessed
an unique event: all the spiritual
leaders expressing the same message of humility, brotherly love, and
charity in deeds.
In 1997 members of the British
Asian community from Uganda,
under the guidance of Manubhai,
organized a series of events to commemorate the 25th anniversary of
the expulsion of the British Asians
from Uganda and their arrival in the
United Kingdom. A thanksgiving
ceremony
took
place
at
Westminister Abbey to thank the
British people; another event took
place at the Swaminarayan Temple
in Neasden where 5,000 Asians
from Uganda expressed their gratitude to President Museveni of
Uganda for inviting the British
Asians back to Uganda and making
it possible for them to reclaim their
properties.
In 2009, Manubhai published
Tide of Fortune – A Family Tale
about the origins of the Madhvani
business conglomerate, his imprisonment under the dictator Idi Amin
and his own business ventures and
challenges.
His life, principals and contributions will live immortally amongst
us and may god bless his soul with
peace and harmony.

Women & history

Asian Voice - Saturday 21st May 2011

27

Indian Wedding

A Kannada wedding

A Kannada wedding is a
simple affair and one of
the most attractive forms
of weddings of India. As
such there are various
communities
in
Karnataka and the wedding rituals followed by
each of these communities are typically different.
One vital feature of the
Kannada wedding is the
numerous rituals performed pre and post wedding.
Pre wedding rituals:
•Nandi: This is a ritual performed to ensure
that the marriage takes
place without any hindrances and goes on
peacefully even if there is
a death or birth on either
side. The first wedding
card is placed before the
Lord along with coconut,
aarti and a kalash.
• Kaashi Yatre: This is
a traditional playful ritual
in existence since yore.
The groom pretends to be

angry as nobody is bothered to search a bride for
him.
He
announces
Brahmachara and leaves
for Kasi on a pilgrimage
like a true sanyasin. He
carries a walking stick, an
umbrella, a fan and a
coconut, a small packet of
rice and dal and also a
dhoti. At this juncture his
maternal uncle intercepts
and convinces him and
puts forth the bride he
has chosen.
• Dev Karya: This ritual is normally performed
on the day of arrival of
the groom's family to the
village or the place the
marriage is being conducted. The goods used
for the wedding are
placed before the Lord
Ganesha and blessings
sought. The bride and the
groom are applied with
'haldi', a paste of turmeric
on their bodies and this is
considered auspicious.
The 'uddin murth' grain
which is considered
sacred is ground.
Wedding rituals:
• Mandap Puja: This
is in fact the first ritual
that is performed on the
day of the marriage. This
Puja is for the Mandap or
the marriage hall to be
rendered appropriate for
the wedding. The Var
Puja is a ceremony per-

formed when the bride's
father brings the groom to
the Mandap. The ceremonial washing of the
groom's feet by the parents of the bride takes
place and a silk dhoti and
pitambar is offered to the
groom to adorn him for
the wedding. It is the
usual practice that none
should see the face of the
bride when she is brought
to the Mandap. So the
bride's face is shielded by
peacock feathers.
• Garlanding ceremony: The bride is escorted
by her uncle to the
Mandap according the
Kannada wedding traditions. The bride and the
groom stand facing each
other with a white cloth
in-between them. The
bride and the groom take
standing positions and
the 'Mangalashtam' which
is the wedding mantra is
recited. The white cloth is
now removed and the

bride and the groom now
garland each other amidst
the chanting of mantras.
Now the groom's sister
holds a kalash of holy
water
that
contains
coconut water, betel
leaves and Kombu Gindi.
• Giving away of the
bride: 'Dhare Herdu' symbolizes handing over their
daughter to the groom.
The bride's father takes
the groom's hand and
places it on the hand of
the bride. The groom then
holds the bride's hand
along with coconut and
betel leaves while her
father ceremonially pours
water into the groom's
hands signifying 'dhara'
that now she belongs to
the groom. Puffed rice is
then poured into the
haven five times before
the seven pheras or the
saptapadi begins.
• Saptapadi is the
actual wedding ceremony
of the bride taking the
groom's footsteps seven
times around the holy fire
'sapta padi'. The groom's
angavastram and the
bride's pallav are tied
with a nuptial knot.
• In the Kannada
wedding, five women tie
the Mangalsutra or the
holy thread while the
bridegroom
holds
it
around the neck of the

bride. The couple bows
before the elders and seek
their blessings.
• In some Kannada
weddings, a game called
Okhli is generally played
with the groom's wedding
ring dipped in a vessel
containing colored water.
The bride and her brother
search for the ring thrice.
Post wedding rituals
• Vidaai ceremony
symbolically refers to the
tearful farewell of the
bride from her maternal
home to her in-laws
house. The bride's parents shower her with
numerous gifts including
an umbrella, vessels, cot
and other items to enable
her set up her new home.
• Graha Pravesh is
the ritual of the bride
entering her new home.
She kicks a kalash full of
rice with her right foot
kept at the entrance of
the groom's house. This
ritual signifies that her
arrival is bound to bring
prosperity and she enters
a new phase of her life.
The name changing ceremony follows. The groom
decides on a name for his
bride which he inscribed
with a ring on a plate containing rice.
Kannada wedding clothes
In
traditional
Kannada weddings, the
bride wears a navari (nine
yard) sari and green glass
bangles. She is adorned
with fine gold jewellery.
The groom wears a silk
dhoti and pitambar and a
pheta, a turban. In the
right hand he holds a
stick which has been
sanctified in a holy place.
Among the various communities in Kannada, in
the Baliga community
wedding the wedding
attire is distinctly different as the bride dresses in
white silk sari with contrasting border. The
groom is draped in white
silk dhoti edged with zari
border and a Valli which
is a stole of the same
material draped over the
shoulders. He also wears
a white shirt and sports
ornamental turban of
gold brocade called pheta.
A large tilak marks his
forehead.
The Kannada Coorg
bride wears a traditional
brocade sari draped in
typical Coorg style. A veil
covers the bride's head. In
Kannada weddings the
bride is presented five
sarees by the groom's family. Each saree is meant
for respective occasions
during the wedding.
During Dare Puja, a
grand Kancheevaram silk
saree is worn whereas a
simple saree is worn for
haldi ritual. An elegant
saree is selected for Puja
and when the bride sits
near the groom after
Graha Pravesh.

By Dr Anil Mehta

James 1 :
The first
British
monarch

James (1566-1625), the only son of Mary,
Queen of Scots was king of Scotland as
James VI (1567-1625) and first Stuart
king (Stuart dynasty) of England as
James I (1603-25). When Mary, Queen of
Scots was forced to abdicate in his favour
in 1567, he was proclaimed King of
Scotland at the age of 1. His childhood
was turbulent as Scotland at the time was
torn by civil war. He was privately educated by tutors and a succession of
regents ruled the kingdom on his behalf
during his minority. He finally assumed
real power in 1581 and established himself as a political leader in his own right.
In 1603 James also inherited the
English throne at the age of 37 as James I
on the death of his distant cousin
Elizabeth I (Tudor dynasty) who died
without heir thus uniting the crown of
England and Scotland. Both countries
now shared one king but their parliament
and church remained separated and distinct. James styled himself as king of
Great Britain and approved the design of
a Union Jack that combined the crosses
of St. Andrews (Scotland) and St. George
(England). Thus after Elizabeth I all the
kings and queens of England could call
themselves monarch of Great Britain.
After 1603, James stayed in London
returning to Scotland only once. On the
Houses of
Parliament were
a target for
Gunpowder Plot

Scottish throne, he proved himself an
effective ruler, but in England he was
generally regarded as an alien. He was
soon in conflict with his parliament on
the question of his sovereignty and its
refusal to grant him what he considered
adequate revenue. Parliament also disliked his extravagance (he was in constant need for money), his belief in the
divine right of kings to rule, his blatant
selling of peerages to raise quick cash,
and his liking for attractive young men
who were rewarded with titles and
estates. Unable to reach a settlement,
James dissolved parliament frequently
and ruled without it. His troubled relationship with parliament weakened his
effectiveness as a ruler.
Although James was Protestant
(Scottish Presbyterian), at first he was
ready to be more tolerant of Catholics
but his council (advisors) and parliament were not happy. Catholics who
anticipated more lenient treatment were
disappointed. The harsh anti-Catholic
laws remained. A small group of

James I

Catholic conspirators decided to get rid
of the king and parliament by blowing
up the Houses of Parliament during
State Opening of Parliament on the 5th
November 1605 (Gunpowder Plot).
However, the plot was foiled, and conspirators – Guy (Guido) Fawkes and his
companions – were executed. After this,
English hatred of Catholics increased.
James did have some success under
his reign. He kept his kingdom in peace
and preserved the power of the crown.
He managed to keep England clear of
costly foreign wars. Under his reign
British Empire began with the colonisation of North America, West Indies, and
India. He encouraged colonisation of
Ulster (Northern Ireland) by Protestant
settlers from Scotland and England but
it caused conflict with the Irish
Catholics that has continued to this day.
James is best known for overseeing
new improved English translation of the
Bible in 1611. Known as Authorised or
King James’s Version, it was a great success. It became a widely read book and
lasted without challenge for over 250
years. James also hoped to bring about
the political union of England and
Scotland (i.e. both countries under one
parliament) but the English strongly
opposed the idea. (This was finally
achieved hundred years later in 1707
under the reign of Queen Anne). The
golden age of Elizabethan literature and
drama continued under him. The theatre
flourished and Shakespeare wrote his
many plays during his reign.
James was small, awkward, and
ungainly with a speech impediment.
Proud, stubborn, unkindly, and shorttempered, he caused offence without
knowing it. He was authoritarian and had
strong views on a wide range of matters.
His reign was marred by unpopular policy
decisions and uneasy relations with parliament. He was among the most paradoxical kings. Although well-educated
and scholarly (he wrote many books), he
appeared foolish at times and was known
as the ‘wisest fool in Christendom’.
James’s elder son Henry died of
Typhoid in 1612, his wife Anne in 1619,
and he himself in 1625 aged 58. He was
buried in Westminster Abbey and succeeded by his second son Charles as Charles I.
Guy Fawkes gang

28

UK

Asian Voice - Saturday 21st May 2011

This week on CB Live, famous singer Kavita Paudwal will sing
bhajans and along with Kokila Patel,
Managing Editor, Gujarat Samachar pay
tribute to Manubhai M Madhvani who will
always be remembered as one of the
greatest contributor to the society.
If you do not have a tv, go to www.tvunetworks.com and
watch CB Live on TVU Player Channel 75203

Regardless of the limits, you have the capacity
to turn the course of your life. Saturn in Libra, the sign
of scales, will help you to balance your priorities and
systematically put them into practice. It is about time
you checked your hastiness and considered all the
pros and cons of any investment.

ARIES Mar 21 - Apr 20

TAURUS Apr 21 - May 21
The prevailing cosmic
pattern packs a powerful punch early this week.
Having such potent energies, make you feel positive
and confident in whatever you do. This is not the time
to hold back or underestimate your potential if you
wish to further an important aim. Some of you will try
to get away from the routine chores.
GEMINI May 22 - June 22
Don't get over- anxious if you feel that you're being kept in the dark. You
will probably find that worries have been unfounded.
Although you may be faced with a difficult decision
concerning your career or employment, this is not the
time to hide. Don't waste time if you can improve
matters.

CANCER Jun 22 - Jul 22
As social life is likely
to gather a pleasant momentum throughout this week,
this is bound to present a better prospect, not only for
striking up new friendships but also romantic encounters. This is going to be one of those times when
insignificant events give rise to unexpected developments especially regarding work and health.
LEO Jul 23 - Aug 23

The focus is on finances
this week, but that doesn’t
mean you should worry yourself sick. Rather, it is
about finding new and improved ways to boost your
earnings potential. It’s fine to consider several options
but don’t get caught up in indecision. Schedule networking opportunities later this week.

VIRGO Aug 24 - Sep 23
Much
enthusiasm
goes into professional ambitions right now, but you
need to be your own boss in many ways. You will be
determined to place your lifestyle on a foundation of
greater security. Taking a broad perspective on the
prevailing cosmic pattern, far-reaching change begins
to gather momentum.
LIBRA Sep 24 - Oct 23

Don't take short-cuts
in legal or official matters.
It will be only too easy to feel exasperated by bureaucracy but you won't be doing yourself any favours if
you lose your cool. This is a fine time for you to get
away from the mundane realities of life and relax.
Some of you will probably go abroad.

SCORPIO Oct 24- Nov 22
Strengthen close ties
of affection, sort out emotional differences and proffer
the olive branch to your loved one. You often sabotage your emotional interests by keeping too much
inside. However, your inner pressure builds up and
manifests as irrational moods that others find hard to
understand.

SAGITTARIUS Nov 23 - Dec 21
Jupiter, the planet
of abundance, is transiting your love sector. You have
plenty of romantic options. Financially you are still not
out of the woods as Saturn is transiting your financial
sign. At work you will experience a relaxed atmosphere and this will help you to get on with everyone
around you.
CAPRICORN Dec 22 - Jan 20
The accent’s very
much on relationships. The opening up of a more
diverse social life is a point in favour of romantic
attachments, if this is what you want. You will achieve
a lot more, especially when you're motivated by your
own desires. The general pattern of things continues
on a progressive and buoyant theme.
At home, be at your
diplomatic best and try not
to tread on anyone's toes. Passions will run from hot
to cold, and relationships may suffer. Even the most
strong-willed Librans will be more open to compromise
to keep the peace. Plan your spending and set sensible budgets.

AQUARIUS Jan 21 - Feb 19

An inspiring boost to
PISCES Feb 20 - Mar 20
matters of communication but make sure your
curiosity on a range of topics does not lead to a scattering of mental energy. With a surge of enery and
enthusiasm, this is a favourable time to make fresh
starts. Personal relationships may be more intense.

HealtH Watch

Asian Voice - Saturday 21st May 2011

Shed weight
by doing just
anything
By Radhika Madlani

An eye for an eye or a simple goodbye?
I recently wrote about
toddlers looking to their
parents for guidance on
how they shape their
behavior as they grow
older and face new situations. Do you encourage
your child to push if they
are pushed or to simply
walk away? How tough
do you want your child
to be? If you had to
choose, would you rather
your child was the bully
or the one being bullied?
Tough question, I know.
Perhaps the answer is
not binary and I may be
looking at this the wrong
way. To clarify my thinking, I started to think
about how our cultural
beliefs may play a part in
the way we condition our
children to behave when
faced with confrontation.
Christian beliefs support
that if someone ‘slaps
you’, you should take the
higher ground and rather
than ‘slap them back’,
you should ‘turn the
other cheek’ so that you
embarrass the person
into withdrawing from
violence. However, this
relies on the other person having a conscience
and an understanding of
what is right and wrong.
As you often hear in
schools, children can be
quite cruel and it is our
jobs as parents to raise
children that aren’t cruel
to others and also know
how to defend themselves from cruelty from
others. It is of course the
role of the school to
ensure that they have
adequate anti-bullying
policies in place and zero

sure you would too.
Whilst many parents like
me don’t want to raise a
bully, we also don’t want
our kids to be passive
enough to make themselves a prime target for
bullying. Is the balance
then to be assertive
enough to push back
when ‘pushed’ but never
to start the ‘pushing’
yourself?
What about what
Mahatma Gandhi used
to say? He truly believed
in ‘ahinsa’ or ‘non-violence’. His belief was
that violence was never
the answer and that one
should ‘fight’ the cause
without the need for violence. His belief was
that your inner strength
would eventually be the
victor. That is a noble
theory but I have to ask
myself this, would I
rather be a mother to the
12 year old who died at
the hands of a child or be
a mother to the child
who took a life? Even
the hypothetical question churns my heart. I
am sure the punishment
to both mums is equal.
I am not sure I have
reached a conclusion. I
am sure that secretly, we
all hope that our children
know better than to get
involved in bullying. But
God forbid, they end up
in a dangerous confrontation with a bully, I
would rather the one
that started it is not the
one that ended it.
Quote:
“An eye for an eye makes
the whole world blind”
– Mahatma Gandhi

tolerance to violence in
order to protect children.
Why then do many
parents, like me, consider enrolling their children in some sort of ‘selfdefense’ classes from an
early age?
I do
empathise with schools
that are often under the
limelight for not doing
enough to protect children in their care. I have
it on good authority from
a school headmistress
that in her experience,
the apple doesn’t fall far
from the tree. Every time
she urged parents of
‘aggressive’ children to
work with her to improve
the behavior of their children, the parents defended their children despite
evidence to the contrary.
They say that love is
blind and when it comes
to our children, it certainly is! We don’t see
(or don’t want to see)
what is clear to others.
As I stepped off the
train earlier, I read an
article in the ‘Metro’
about a 12 year old that
is on trial for the murder
of another 12 year old.
Suddenly, it dawned on
me. It can’t have been a
mistake, an unfortunate
incident, a one off. Any
child who takes someone
else’s life must have
started with a push and
got away with it, had a
‘rush’ from bullying
someone, felt empowered from the fear they
can
cause.
Unfortunately, these are
the sort of children I
want to protect my
daughter from and I am

Should you have any comments or want to get in touch with me you can
email on avmamaria@gmail.com

Aspirin decreases
cancer deaths
Researchers have found
that aspirin reduces overall death rates due to cancer by a third after just five
years' use. It was 50 per
cent for some cancers and
the longer people took the
drug, the better the protection. Experts said healthy
middle-aged people who
start taking low-dose
aspirin around the age of
45 or 50 years could
expect to reap the most
benefit, because cancer
rates rise with age.
Aspirin also helps prevent heart attacks and
strokes even in people
who have not been diagnosed with cardiovascular
problems. Peter Rothwell
of the John Radcliffe
Hospital, Oxford, who
headed the latest study, is
convinced the ground
rules have changed. These
findings provide the first
proof that aspirin reduces
deaths due to several common cancers.

Want to burn calories, but
don’t have time to exercise
or hit the gym! No worries,
here’s your solution. A
dietician has offered some
surprising ways to burn
more calories throughout
your day, including at the
office, at home, outside,
with your mate, and even
while you're asleep.
Sitting at your desk by
fidgeting, like tapping toes,
moving around, or fussing
with hands can burn off up
to 800 extra calories per
day, the equivalent of an
hour-long spin class. A full
night's sleep can burn
around
200
calories.
Spending an hour typing on
computer might cut 100
calories equivalent to jumping rope for 10 minutes.

Cooking your dinner
yourself can help digest
half of what you eat for
dinner. After dinner, loading the dishwasher for 30
minutes burns 105 calories, and washing them by
hand eats up 160 calories.
She suggested that
doing laundry might burn
72 calories while ironing
for 30 minutes drops
about 70 calories and
tones the muscles of the
upper body.
An hour-long massage
can burn more calories
than you might think - 230
calories - the same as an
hour of lightweight training, the dietician added.

29

Health cannot be bought,
it has to be nurtured

Health is something which
you cannot buy from the
market but has to be nurtured everyday. Health is
defined as the condition of
a person's body or mind
and it has to be maintained in a continuous
process that affects all
aspects of your life.
Modern lifestyle brings
with it its own baggage
Stress, tension, work
environment generated
problems - posture, carpal
tunnel syndrome, noise,
pollution, etc. Each of
these, minor irritants in
their own right, contribute
their bit until the aggregate is greater than the
parts and unfortunately
we tend to realise this only
when it is past the point of
no return. There are a
range of possibilities to
keep you healthy.
Food First
Food affects our health
in the most primary way.
Eating healthy is the easiest step to health. It does
not mean starving yourself
or denying yourself. It simply requires switching to
healthier options. Opt for
whole grains to refined
ones. Use cooking oils that
are naturally fat and cholesterol free. And remember the basic equation:
what you eat should not be

more than what you burn
as body fuel.
Fighting Fit
If
lifestyles
have
changed so have the fitness options. Some are
your everyday, basic variety. Where possible, opt
for the stairs rather the
elevators. If it is short distance and there is a proper
walking path, use two feet
instead of four wheels.
Your health and the environment, both will benefit.
Gymnasium
The gymnasium is the
place to develop the mental
faculties alongside the
physical prowess of young
men. The other route to
holistic health is the more
luxurious
spa
route.
Massages that use aromas
to address health concerns,
skin treatments that seek to
undo the damage of pollution and urban living, and a
holistic assessment of body
are some of the hallmarks
of spa treatments.
Ultimately, health is in
the hands of the self. Not
all the trainers of the
world or massagers or
chefs of the world can give
you good health unless
you want it yourself and
are willing to burn for it..
Remember, the healthier
you are the more you will
enjoy your life.

Twelve Indian cricketers,
including the likes of Munaf
Patel and Ravichandran
Ashwin, are expected to
feature in the first edition of
the Sri Lankan Premier
League (SLPL) scheduled
to commence from July 19.
Sri
Lanka
Cricket
(SLC) has secured the services of several prominent
overseas cricketers, including Chris Gayle and Kieron
Pollard, who are currently
engaged in the Indian
Premier League (IPL).
Apart from Gayle, SLPL
is also expected to feature
Daniel Vettori, whose IPL
journey was cut short after
a recurring knee injury.
Besides Munaf and Ashwin
other Indian players on the
SLPL radar are Dinesh
Karthik, Irfan Pathan,
Manish Pandey, Manoj
Tiwary, Paul Valthaty,
Ravindra Jadeja, Saurabh
Tiwary, Umesh Yadav and
Vinay Kumar. The list,
which in all features 33
overseas players so far, also
include the names of David
Warner, Shahid Afridi,
Shoaib
Akhtar,
Umar
Akmal,
Albie
Morkel,
Herschelle Gibbs, Kevin
O'Brien and Tamim Iqbal
among others.

Asian Voice - Saturday 21st May 2011

Gilchrist conquers Bangalore
Adrenalin, violence and a lot of skill.
The Dharamsala sky cracked with lightning and thunder but the real storm was
witnessed from the bats of Adam
Gilchrist and Shaun Marsh. Gilchrist
rolled back the years to produce a
delightfully aggressive century and
Marsh unfurled a gem of his own as the
pair constructed the highest partnership
in a Twenty20 game, 206 runs, to help
Kings XI Punjab terminate Royal
Challengers Bangalore's winning streak.
With this massive 111-run victory,
Punjab are level on points with Kolkata
Knight Riders and also, racked up their
net run rate.
There are many big-hitting batsmen
but most of them tend to club, bludgeon, tonk, heave and thump. Gilchrist,
though, rarely plays an "ugly" shot. He
makes eye-pleasing classical arcs with
the bat and on Tuesday night was no
different. Marsh captured the mood
best: "It was a privilege to watch it from
the other end," Marsh said.
Gilchrist made his presence felt in
the chase too, diving to his left to take a
stunner to dismiss Chris Gayle and
derail the chase. Ryan Harris removed
both Gayle and Virat Kohli, Praveen
Kumar bowled his fifth maiden of the
tournament, and Piyush Chawla bamboozled the lower-middle order with his
googlies and legbreaks to grab four
wickets but the night will be, as it
should be, remembered for the carnage
unleashed by Gilchrist the batsman.
He didn't start flowing until the seventh over, preferring to let Paul Valthaty
play the role of aggressor. Gilchrist was
on 2 off 9 deliveries, and Punjab on 30
for 1, when a short ball from
Abhimanyu Mithun helped him kickstart his flashback. He swivelled to pull
the white ball over the midwicket
boundary to signal the beginning of the
carnage. He then turned his attention to
S Aravind, who had given only a solitary run from seven deliveries. He
charged down the track to lift one over
long-off and crashed another to the
straight boundary. With Marsh collect-

Adam Gilchrist's explosive century powered Punjab to a 111-run win against Bangalore

ing a six and a four, S Aravind leaked 21
runs in that eight over. The floodgates
were well and truly open.
Kohli tried to the check the Gilchrist
flood with the spin of Gayle. No luck,
though, as he was swung for two huge
sixes. It was in the 10th over, bowled by
Charl Langeveldt, that Gilchrist really
stepped up the violence in some style.
He played the conventional and the
short-arm pull to collect two sixes
before he produced the longest six (122
meters) to complete the hat-trick. It
was a knuckle -ball from Langeveldt but
Gilchrist read it early and swung it way
beyond the midwicket boundary.
Langeveldt winced, Kohli stared into
distance and the Punjab camp was agog
with utter delight.
Bangalore's woes, though, were only

to escalate from that moment as Marsh
decided to weigh in with his own brand
of aggression. He stamped his presence
in the 15th over, looting 30 runs off
Johan van der Wath. It went for 6 6 4 4
4 6, as Marsh launched a stunning
assault. Three fours sped to the extracover boundary, one six flew over midwicket, another sailed over long-off and
the final six disappeared over the
straight boundary.
By the end it was difficult to keep
count of the sixes as the scorecard kept
racing ahead as though it was on steroids.
It was a violent violent night at the hilltown inhabited by peaceful monks.
Brief Score: Kings XI Punjab 232
for 2 (Gilchrist 106, Marsh 79*) beat
Royal Challengers Bangalore 121
(Chawla 4-17) by 111 runs

Gautam Gambhir to lead India, Dhoni rested
India has named Gautam
Gambhir as the captain of a
16-member squad to play a
one-off Twenty20 international and five one-dayers in
the West Indies next month.
The Board of Control for
Cricket in India said that
Gambhir was named captain
after selectors decided to rest
World Cup-winning captain
Mahendra Singh Dhoni, batting star Sachin Tendulkar
and pacer Zaheer Khan in
the midst of a hectic season.
All three will be available for
a test series that will follow
the one-dayers. Opener
Virender Sehwag has been
ruled out because of a shoulder injury.
Apart from the four sen-

Gautam Gambhir

ior players who will be missing the limited overs internationals, those from the World
Cup squad not making the
cut are leg-spinner Piyush

Chawla
and
pacer
Shantakumaran Sreesanth.
Batsmen Rohit Sharma and
Subramaniam
Badrinath
have been recalled along

Few surprises in India's squad to West Indies
By Premen Addy
Are West Indies emerging
from
the
international
eclipse as a Test-playing
nation? Once the foremost
cricketing force on planet
earth, West Indies are a mere
shadow of their glorious
past. But there is a faint sign
of better times with their 40run victory over Pakistan in
the first Test in Guyana at
the weekend.
The 16-member Indian

touring
party
to
the
Caribbean includes two
wicketkeepers in Parthiv
Patel and Wriddiman Saha, a
wise decision by the selectors since the hectic itinerary is confined to 5 ODIs
and a single Twenty20 fixture; and possible injuries to
players may not have the
time to heal. Replacements
must be on call. The tour
will begin on June 4 with a
Twenty20 game.
India's more arduous

series in England, to commence in mi-July, will hinge
on four Tests and five ODIs.
As such key players like
Mahendra Singh Dhoni,
Sachin
Tendulkar
and
Zaheer Khan have been
rested,
while
Virender
Sehwag will be recovering
from an operation to a troublesome shoulder.
Gautam Gambhir will
captain the team to the
West Indies, but the performances of Virat Kohli

and Rohit Sharma with the
bat and Amit Mishra and
Pravin Kumar with the ball
will be watched with particular interest for possible
inclusion to England later
in the summer. A tour to
Australia will follow at the
end of the year.
However, the selection of
Irfan Pathan to the West
Indies is something of a surprise as he is neither a force
with ball or bat these days.
He should enjoy the cruise.

SPOrT world

Asian Voice - Saturday 21st May 2011

Unbeatable Djokovic stuns Nadal in Rome
Novak Djokovic took his unbeaten run
in 2011 to 37 matches as he stunned
world number one Rafael Nadal 6-4, 64 to win the Rome Masters.
It was the fourth time in a row the
Serbian has beaten Nadal in a Masters
final this season and the second successive week he has done so on clay
after winning in Madrid.
Djokovic has won all seven tournaments he's played this year, including
the Australian Open, and must surely
now be considered the favourite going
into the French Open which starts next
Sunday.
The world number two, who lost all
of his eight previous matches on clay
against the Spaniard before his Madrid
triumph, is also homing in on Nadal's
top ranking.
He played some wonderful tennis,
at 3-3, 30-15, Djokovic found an
impossible angle to hit a forehand winner and secured that game after running Nadal all over the back of the
court, the Spaniard netting a backhand
on the stretch.
That seemed to galvanise the
Serbian and a wild Nadal forehand
gave up a double break point in the
next game.
Incredibly he then took his eye off a
routine backhand and clipped the ball
off the rim and into the skies to hand
Djokovic a 5-3 lead.
But it is not for nothing that Nadal
had already won here a record five
times.
After a long crosscourt exchange
between Djokovic's forehand and

Novak Djokovic celebrates his win

Nadal's backhand, the Serbian netted
when trying to go down the line and
Nadal broke back.
However, a netted backhand from
the Spaniard brought up set point in
the next game and Djokovic stepped up
into the court to swipe away a crosscourt backhand winner.
Djokovic held serve easily at the
start of the second before Nadal raced
into a 40-0 lead on his serve.
However, that game would go on to
last more than 10 minutes and see
Nadal broken when he sliced a backhand into the tramlines. And yet Nadal
broke straight back as his fighting qualities came to the fore.
He also fended off a 15-40 deficit in
the next game and avoided being broken for the fourth time in a row.
Perhaps more importantly, though,
was the fact that Djokovic made four

unforced errors in a row.
He also made three straight
unforced errors when leading 40-0 in
the next game as tiredness seemed to
creep up on him, his three-hour epic
semifinal against Andy Murray on
Saturday starting to show in his legs.
And yet he dug deep to hold serve.
The breaks eased up until Nadal
had to serve to stay in the match.
And the last game was a fitting
finale to a wonderful encounter.
Nadal twice went long on the backhand to drop to 0-40 but a Djokovic
error and some big hitting from the
Spaniard brought it back to deuce.
However, Djokovic forced another
championship point and this time, after
a thrilling rally, he kept his nerve to
pounce on a net-cord and fire away the
winning shot. It was only Nadal's second ever defeat here.

Australia beat Pakistan, lift Azlan Shah hockey cup
Chris Ciriello scored a golden goal in extra-time to see
Australia beat Pakistan 3-2
in the Azlan Shah Cup hockey final and claim the trophy
for the sixth time.
Asian Games champions
Pakistan twice came from
behind to equalise. The
teams were deadlocked 2-2
at the end of the regulation
time. Ciriello struck the winner in the second half of
extra time (83rd minute).
Australia, who last won
the trophy in 2007, were
fielding a second string team
in the tournament with
many top players missing
from the line-up.
It was Ciriello who
slammed the first goal for
Australia in the 11th minute
before Pakistan's penalty
corner specialist Sohail
Abbas equalised in the 30th
minute. The two teams were
levelled 1-1 in the first half.
Australia again moved into
the lead through Glenn
Turner in the 44th minute,

Australian team poses with Sultan Azlan Shah Hockey Cup

but Pakistan's Rehan Butt
drew parity in the 62nd
minute.
Britain in third spot
Great Britain bounced
back from a lethargic start to
beat New Zealand 4-2 and
finish third in the 20th edition of game. Last year's
joint champions South
Korea and India battled it
out for fifth spot in a repeat
of 2010's washed-out final
with the Koreans prevailing
in a 2-1 victory.

New Zealand were the
early aggressors against
Great Britain, forcing a
penalty corner in the fourth
minute. Andrew Hayward
had the ball in the net but
Pakistani umpire Waqas
Ahmad Butt ordered a retake, with the shot this time
saved by British keeper
Nicholas Brothers.
In the 20th minute New
Zealand struck off their second penalty corner as
Hayward played the ball

towards the goal and pusher
Stephen Jenness rushed in
for a neat deflection that
sailed over the outstretched
Brothers to put the Kiwis 10 up.
Richard Mantell finally
got the better of Kyle
Pontifex in the 34th minute,
off Great Britain's fifth
penalty corner to level the
score at half time.
In the 51st minute,
Daniel Richard Fox cut
through the centre of the
Kiwi defence and laid up a
pass for Robert Moore on
the left whose shot sailed
past Pontifex to put the Brits
2-1 up.
And in the 59th minute,
Richard Smith sent in a low
flick from a penalty corner
that put his team 3-1 ahead
while Matthew Daly added
the fourth in the 65th
minute.
Blair Hilton netted New
Zealand's second in the 69th
minute but it was clearly
Great Britain's game.

Third venue on Olympic Park ready
Construction has been completed on the London 2012
Handball Arena – the third
venue on the Olympic Park
to achieve this milestone.
The
occasion
was
marked by a visit to the
venue by Prime Minister
David Cameron and Deputy
Prime Minister Nick Clegg,
as they announced new
measures to support youth
employment. They also met
apprentices working on the
Olympic Park.
Prime Minister Cameron
said: “that this great venue
has been completed on time
and within budget is testament to the hard work,

expertise and skills of the
Olympic Park workforce. We
are on track to stage a fan-

tastic Olympic and Para
Olympic Games in London
next summer.’

Construction started on
the arena in July 2009. The
venue includes unique copper cladding, natural lighting
shafts and multi-coloured
seating, of which the lower
tier is retractable.
Olympic
Delivery
Authority Chairman John
Armitt said: ‘The Handball
Arena milestone is another
example of just how far we
have come since construction started on the Olympic
Park three years ago. The
arena is compact, sustainably built and will provide an
excellent sports and community venue for London long
after the Games are over.’

31

Diego Maradona to
coach UAE club
Diego Maradona has
been hired to coach
United Arab Emirates
soccer club Al Wasl on a
two-year contract. He
has been out of coaching
since leading Argentina
to the World Cup quarterfinals last year, visited
the club's training facility and had been in talks
for several days. Al Wasl officials would not disclose details of the contract announced on
Monday, saying only that it was for two seasons
and that Maradona would be responsible for
leading the club "to new heights." Al Wasl is
fourth in the domestic league and has been
looking for a coach since firing Sergio Farias in
March. Al Wasl says that Maradona was on his
way back to Argentina and could not be reached
for comment. He is expected back next month.

Bopanna, Somdev
improve ATP rankings
Indian tennis players
Rohan Bopanna and
Somdev Devvarman have
achieved career best ATP
rankings. While Bopanna
achieved his career-best
rank of 11 in the ATP
doubles chart, Somdev
rose to number 66, his
career best singles rank.
Somdev had crashed out
of Zagreb Open in the
first round last week but
still managed to go two
places up and improve his career-best ranking.
Veteran doubles stars Mahesh Bhupathi (5) and
Leander Paes (7) were changed but Bopanna
gained two positions to be on the threshold of
top-10. In the doubles team ranking, Paes and
Bhupathi continue to be number two but
Bopanna and his Pakistani partner Aisam-ulHaq Qureshi slipped to number seven from six.
Meanwhile, in the WTA charts, Sania Mirza was
unchanged in singles (74) but improved the
doubles ranking by gaining a place to 26.

Muttiah Muralitharan to
play in NZ T20 league
Spin legend Muttiah
Muralitharan will play
for Wellington Firebirds
in the New Zealand
domestic
Twenty20
cricket competition next
season.
Wellington
Firebirds chief executive
Gavin Larsen recently
confirmed the deal to
bring the highest wicket
taker in test and one-day
international cricket to
the province. "It is a
tremendous boost for Wellington to secure the
services of one of the greatest international
cricketers of all time," Gavin Larsen was quoted as saying. "He is a superb cricketer and a
great ambassador for the game. As well as
being a huge asset for us he is also very keen to
assist us in promoting the game around
Wellington."

Surat boy Bhargav best
under 19 cricketer
Surat boy Bhargav Merai has been crowned
with the MA Chidambaram trophy for the best
under 19 cricketer of 2009-10. The only son of
Hemant and Usha Merai, Bhargav is a first year
student of Navyug Commerce College in Surat
and his dream is to play Test matches for India
one day. Bhragav, who has already featured in
the Gujarat ODI team in 2009-10 and had to sit
out with a fractured right thumb in the next season, knows that he has a long way to go to
realise that dream. Meanwhile, the BCCI has
decided to bestow the Poly Umrigar award for
India’s best cricketer of 2009-10 to veteran
Sachin Tendulkar. Tendulkar would be presented the award during the fourth annual BCCI
awards ceremony on May 31.